


going up in flames (and you're to blame)

by luxluminaire



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: During Canon, F/F, Manipulative Relationship, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-10-07 15:57:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17368937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxluminaire/pseuds/luxluminaire
Summary: Ellie Wadsworth was the most brilliant woman that Joan had ever met - until she learns just how much she has misjudged her, and they enter into a battle of wills even as everything crumbles around them.(The rise, fall, and aftermath of Joan and Wadsworth's relationship, pre-series and throughout seasons 3 and 4. Or, what would have happened if Joan had been dating Wadsworth instead of Agent Green while working at the AM.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic ended up about five times longer than I originally intended because apparently this ship is too powerful to be contained, so buckle up and (hopefully) enjoy <3

Ellie Wadsworth is, in a word, brilliant.

That much is clear from the moment that Joan starts working at the AM, when she hears the whispers throughout the hallways and across the offices and labs about how talented and intelligent Agent Wadsworth is. Joan instinctively knows that she is someone to admire, and so her gaze is drawn to her whenever she walks by. It’s a professional crush, if nothing else: a burning desire to be like this woman who is fearless and commanding. Powerful men are a dime a dozen in both the science and corporate worlds, but powerful _women_ are something else entirely, and so it is only natural that Joan is drawn to her even before she properly meets her.

Not long after Joan transitions into a new full-time position working directly with the atypicals in the AM’s programs, she receives an email from Wadsworth (now  _Associate Director_ Wadsworth, the youngest person to hold that position in the organization’s history, if the rumors are to be believed) requesting a meeting with her. _Nothing too formal_ , the email reads, _but I’d like to get to know one of this division’s new rising stars_. The compliment alone is enough to pique Joan’s curiosity, and she cannot believe that someone with such a high position in the organization has taken an interest in her. She isn’t necessarily _nervous_ when she approaches Wadsworth’s office upon the invitation, but the prospect of meeting someone whom she has until now merely admired from afar carries a certain amount of trepidation with it.

She knocks on the frame of the open door. “Director Wadsworth?” she says. “You wanted to see me?”

Wadsworth looks up from her work. “Ah, yes. Dr. Bright. Come in, and close the door behind you.”

Joan steps into the office. The space is much cushier than the communal office that she shares with her co-workers--the perks of being the associate director, Joan supposes. A chair awaits her in front of Wadsworth’s desk, but she does not sit yet. Instead, her focus remains on Wadsworth herself as she stands up from her desk to approach her. She cuts an impressive figure in both a physical and professional sense, between the tall and angular shape of her body and her sharp attire of an all-business pantsuit, and the sight of her sends Joan’s heart racing.

“I have to say,” Wadsworth begins, clasping Joan’s hand in a firm handshake, “I’m so glad I finally have a chance to speak with you, Joan--can I call you Joan?”

Joan takes a certain amount of pride in the title of “Doctor” after having worked so hard to earn it, and despite initially raising her eyebrows at the AM assigning her a code name she has grown fond of the name “Bright” as well--the middle “an” sound dropped from her real surname to create an image of brilliance and optimism. There’s something appealing in hearing Wadsworth use her first name in a sense of immediate familiarity that does not feel condescending, however, and so Joan cannot refuse her.

“Um, yes,” she replies. “That’s fine. Whatever you prefer.”

“Excellent. Now, feel free to sit down and make yourself comfortable. I promise I don’t bite.”

Joan takes a seat in the chair while Wadsworth returns to her desk. Wadsworth’s gaze upon her is intense but not harsh or uninviting, as if Joan is her sole point of interest despite the pile of paperwork on her desk. The attention is intoxicating after having admired her from afar for so long, but Joan pushes aside her temporarily starstruck feelings in favor of professionalism.

“Anyway,” Wadsworth continues on. “I thought we could take this time to chat about your work. How are you enjoying your new position? I understand you recently started working in patient intake after being part of our research division for the past few years.”

“It’s good,” says Joan. “Certainly unusual at times, but I suppose that’s to be expected with the patients who participate in our programs.” She then frowns at the nature of the question. “I’m sorry, is… Is this some kind of performance review, or--?”

Wadsworth gives a quiet chuckle. “No. Not a formal one, at least. I know that working directly with atypicals can often be a big adjustment, and I just want to make sure that you’re making the transition okay.”

“And is this a standard line of inquiry for _all_ employees who have been recently promoted?” Joan asks, equal parts curious and skeptical.

“Only the ones I like.”

A gleam in Wadsworth’s eyes accompanies the slight upward quirk of her lips. Joan swallows hard to reintroduce moisture into her mouth, pleasantly taken aback at how Wadsworth is as charming as she is brilliant.

“So, tell me a little more about yourself, Joan.” Wadsworth continues to survey her with interest, her hands folded on the surface of her desk with her long fingers steepled together. “How did you become aware of atypicals, and what made you decide that you wanted to work with them?”

Joan hesitates before responding. The truth lies somewhere in the many times during her youth when she had witnessed Mark do impossible things that didn’t make sense no matter how much she tried to find a logical explanation for them--but back then she didn’t have the vocabulary to define Mark as anything other than her strange and unusual little brother. Even now, when she is more familiar with atypicals, he defies most of the AM’s classifications, and so she is reluctant to mention him to any AM personnel in case they decide that they need to bring him here for further study. Instead Joan gives the same answer she has given to everyone else at the AM, a response that keeps Mark and his ability safely hidden away.

“While I was in grad school, I met a woman who was telekinetic,” she says. “I was fascinated, and with her permission I studied her and her ability. Eventually some of my research caught the AM’s attention, and from there I knew that I could make a career out of working with atypicals.”

“And you weren’t shocked or surprised to meet someone who could move things with her mind?” Wadsworth asks. “That’s not exactly an ability that can be explained away by ordinary science.”

“There are a lot of strange things in this world,” says Joan. “Who’s to say that telekinesis can’t be one of them?”

Wadsworth murmurs in agreement. “Fair enough. We definitely see our share of strange things here at the AM. And you’ve certainly been doing good work with us. You’ve taken the connections between atypical abilities and mental health to some truly new and exciting places. I’m particularly intrigued by your research on patterns of comorbidity between Class A abilities and mood disorders.”

“I’ve been inspired by a lot of your work, actually,” Joan admits. “I’ve read all of your public research reports, and your findings were what made me think more closely about the relationship between the individual and their ability. To think of the ability not as an isolated facet, but something intrinsically tied to all aspects of the self.”

“All of my reports, huh?” A warm hint of laughter enters Wadsworth’s voice. “Someone’s enthusiastic.”

“Not just yours, of course,” Joan says, backtracking to avoid sounding like she is trying to suck up to her. “But it’s impossible to ignore how everyone talks about how brilliant your work is. I felt like I would be doing myself a disservice to not investigate further.”

“Well, in the end I’m just like you, Joan,” says Wadsworth. “I want to understand everything I can about atypicals and unravel the mysteries that the wider population doesn’t know about. And I’m very fortunate to be in a position where I can use my work to enact some real change. After all, science shouldn’t always be in the hands of a bunch of old white men, right?”

“Definitely not,” Joan agrees. Her time in academia while getting her degrees has taught her that much, and she has worked hard to prove herself in a field that in some ways remains a so-called “boys’ club.” Wadsworth is a prime example of someone who is unafraid to assert herself as a woman in a position of authority, and her commonality with Joan in defying all three categories of “old white man” makes her admire her all the more for it.

“And that’s where people like you come in.” Wadsworth’s gaze remains fixed on Joan. “I like to keep an eye out for employees who have established themselves as a cut above the rest. Between your research and your work with our patients here, you perfectly embody that excellence. And I think you and I could do some _very_ good work together.”

“Oh. Um.” Joan stumbles over her words, caught off guard by the enormity of the compliment. “Thank you, Director. That means a lot to me.”

“No, thank _you_ , Joan. You’re exactly the kind of person that the AM needs, and I’m more than happy to make sure that you continue to do great things during your time here. Call it a… hmm, mentorship.” Wadsworth turns her attention to the computer on her desk, tapping a finger against the mouse to scroll down the page. “Unfortunately, I’m going to be very busy in the coming week, but how about we set up another meeting once my schedule quiets down a little? I’ll send an email your way once I have more details.”

“Yes, that would be…” Joan clears her throat before she risks sounding too enthusiastic. “That would be great.”

“Fantastic,” says Wadsworth. She stands up from her chair, and Joan rises to her feet to meet her. “Well, it was an absolute pleasure to finally have a chance to talk with you, Joan. I’ll see you at our next meeting, if not before then.”

“You too, Director.”

Joan grips her hand in a handshake of farewell. Their eyes meet, and in the invisible electricity that passes between them, she knows that she is about to embark on something wonderful.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few months, Joan finds herself in Wadsworth’s office with increased frequency, fitting in their meetings when they can make room in their busy schedules. The meetings sometimes last for up to an hour or two at a time, as they become lost in conversation until Wadsworth is interrupted by an important phone call or Joan looks at the clock and realizes that she needs to get back to work. She feels like she could listen to Wadsworth talk all day, but what she truly enjoys is having the opportunity to share her own thoughts as well. It’s a perfect situation, as far as she is concerned. Not only does she receive guidance in how to navigate the AM’s more bureaucratic waters, but she also gains insight into some of Wadsworth’s own research that would have otherwise remained unknown to her.

“It’s definitely easy to see how atypicals can play off each other,” Joan says while she and Wadsworth are deep in conversation one afternoon. They have met during Joan’s lunch break, sitting together at the table in Wadsworth’s office even after they have finished eating. “Especially with Class A abilities. I’ve seen it happen in group therapy settings where, for example, telepaths and empaths have bounced off each other in really interesting ways. Both are able to glimpse different parts of other people’s minds, so it creates a feedback loop of information exchanged between them.”

“Oh, that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” says Wadsworth. “You’re on the right track when you say that the phenomenon is most recognizable in Class A’s. But there’s potential for synergy between categories as well. Say you have a telepath and someone with the power of invisibility in the same room. Can the telepath read the thoughts of someone who has gone invisible? Does the invisible person function like someone unseen in another room to the telepath, or does invisibility extend to concealing the mind as well as the physical body?

“Concealing the mind?” Joan inquires. “So you’re saying that in that case, someone with invisibility could become temporarily immune to the telepath’s power?”

“Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it?” Wadsworth’s smile indicates that Joan has taken the conversation in the exact direction that she wants. “So far the results have shown extreme variance depending on the strength and degree of control of the subjects’ abilities. But we _have_ found that if a telepath is unknowingly in the presence of someone who has gone invisible, most of the time only the most powerful telepaths can hear the thoughts of the invisible person. But when the telepath knows that they’re in the presence of someone with invisibility, whether they witness the other person using their power or are told that there is someone else in the room with them, they can hear the thoughts with much more ease regardless of the strength of their telepathy. So in terms of immunity, it’s a very niche situation that I’m not sure has many practical applications. But it _does_ show that there are indeed ways to resist Class A powers.”

Her use of the word “subjects” catches Joan’s attention. It makes sense that Wadsworth would refer to the atypicals in question as such, since she often approaches her work from a purely scientific and experimental angle, but there’s something inescapably cold and clinical about the word. Joan is sure that all of the experimentation done at the AM is completely consensual on the atypicals’ parts, and so she pushes aside her momentary unease.

“Is that something you’re interested in?” she asks instead. “Finding out how people can be immune to others’ abilities? If that’s something you’re allowed to share with me, of course,” she adds, remembering that Wadsworth’s position within the AM means that many aspects of her work must remain confidential.

“Call it one of my pet projects,” Wadsworth replies. “I’m sure you know how frustrating it can be to work with atypicals whose abilities interfere with how we interact with them. By developing ways to become immune to atypicals, we can move past those pesky complications and receive better results.”

“It sounds amazing,” says Joan. “But isn’t it a little, well, impossible? Like you said, there’s so much variation in atypical abilities even within the same power. It would be a huge undertaking to apply it on a wide scale.”

Wadsworth laughs. “Well, Joan, what’s impossible today is yesterday’s news tomorrow.”

Her words don’t make much sense when taken as a whole, but Joan certainly believes the conviction and determination behind them. She opens her mouth to respond, but a knock on the door interrupts her.

“Come in,” Wadsworth says.

The door opens, and Agent Green steps into the office. “Director? I have the weekly reports on Tiers 1 through 3 and--oh.” He stops upon noticing Joan’s presence. “Dr. Bright. I didn’t realize you’d be here. Don’t you have a patient evaluation soon?”

“Um, yes,” Joan glances at the clock and discovers that her lunch break has indeed come to a close. “I’m just finishing up here.”

“We could walk back together, if you’d like,” says Green. “We’re going to the same place, after all, and I could brief you on the patient--”

“I think I’ll manage fine, Agent Green,” Joan interrupts him. “I have the patient’s file from this morning. But thank you.”

“Yes, of course.” Green clears his throat and holds up the file folder that he carries with him. “Should I leave these on your desk, Director?”

“Please,” says Wadsworth. “Thank you, Green. I’ll see you at our meeting later this afternoon.”

“Of course. I’ll talk to both of you soon.”

He places the paperwork on the desk and then leaves the office with a nod of farewell. After the door has closed behind him, Joan returns her attention to Wadsworth and sees a smirk curled across her lips.

“That man is absolutely smitten with you,” says Wadsworth.

Her comment takes Joan aback. Until now their conversations have mostly been about their work, never delving too deeply into personal details beyond the basics. Sordid gossip about their colleagues is the last thing she expects to hear out of Wadsworth’s mouth, but she supposes it was only a matter of time before the professionalism between them slipped away.

“I’ve noticed,” Joan replies. “He’s not very subtle about it, is he?”

Wadsworth laughs. “No, subtlety has never been his strong suit. He’s an excellent administrator and a loyal employee, but he’s got a bit of a soft heart. Which seems to extend to how he feels about you.”

“There’s nothing going on between us, you know,” Joan says, because if they’re temporarily doing away with professionalism she might as well clarify her own feelings, or lack thereof, toward Green. “I enjoy his company as a coworker, but I’m not interested in anything more with him.”

“Good. Because just between us--” Wadsworth leans across the table and lowers her voice to a conspiratorial undertone. “You can do a _lot_ better than him.”

Joan raises her eyebrows. “And since when are you concerned about who I date?”

“I’m just looking out for you, Joan,” says Wadsworth in a model of innocence. “There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly concern, is there?”

“I suppose not.”

Joan tries to not dwell on the word “friendly,” even though it’s strange to think of Wadsworth as her friend. They have grown more familiar and comfortable with each other over the course of their meetings, but Wadsworth is still her boss no matter how blurry that line gets. This turn in their conversation does not feel wrong, however, and so a strange warmth fills her at Wadsworth’s so-called friendly concern.

“I should get back to work now,” she says. She pushes her chair back from the table and stands up. “Thank you so much for lunch, Director. You’ll let me know next time you’re free for a meeting?”

“I can always squeeze in some time for you,” Wadsworth replies. “I have to say, I’ve really been enjoying these chats. It looks like I made the right choice in taking you under my wing.”

“It’s been--” Joan pauses to find the right word. “Amazing” or “wonderful” sound too strong, but something like “enlightening” sounds too clinical, focused more on the all-business parts of these meetings. “You’ve been a great friend and mentor to me,” she says instead, testing the waters with an assumption of their relationship.

“Oh, but we can be so much more than that,” replies Wadsworth. Joan’s heart swoops as if it is about to fall out of her chest, because there are more than a few decidedly unprofessional ways to interpret that statement. “Give it a few years, and you could be right up here with me. And together we’ll make the world a better and safer place for both ourselves and atypicals.”

Once again the sheer conviction in her words draws Joan in, and for a moment she can perfectly picture that future: one where all atypicals can live in harmony with their abilities and she no longer has to fear for Mark’s safety. It’s something that was only a distant flicker on her horizon when she began her work with the AM, but when she looks into Wadsworth’s eyes she firmly believes that she can achieve anything that she desires.

“Yes,” she says. “I think I’d like that.”


	2. Chapter 2

Six months into Joan’s promotion, she undergoes a mandatory evaluation of her work thus far, during which the higher-ups go over her research and sit in on one of her sessions with the patient’s permission. She knows it can’t be a coincidence when Wadsworth shows up with a clipboard in hand to conduct the evaluation, but if someone is going to be carefully examining her work they might as well be a friendly face. Although Wadsworth’s presence is mostly unobtrusive as she sits in the corner of the room taking notes, Joan occasionally finds her attention wavering as she talks with her patient and guides him through some mindfulness exercises. It’s far from the first time that thoughts of Wadsworth have inconveniently occupied her mind while she works, but the distraction is much harder to shake while in the company of the woman herself.

“You’ve been making very good progress,” Joan says to her patient, a pyrokinetic in one of the Tier 2 programs. “Be sure to practice some of the exercises that we did on your own time over the next few days, especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed and start to feel sparks forming. And don’t worry about causing any more incidents. You’re not the first pyrokinetic who has come through here and ended up setting the curtains in the rec room on fire.”

“Thanks, Dr. Bright,” he replies. “I’ll see you on Monday, right?”

“Yes. Take care.”

He leaves the room. Joan jots down a few final notes, determinedly keeping her attention away from the faint scribbling noise of Wadsworth’s pen from the corner of the room as she remembers Wadsworth’s words at the beginning of the session: “Pretend I’m not even here.” When the sound of the pen is replaced by the click of heels against the floor, Joan finally looks up to acknowledge the distraction that has occupied the periphery of her attention for the better part of the past hour.

“I have to say, pyrokinetics are always an interesting bunch,” Wadsworth says. “Intriguing how you’ve connected the flare-ups of his ability to anxiety. Most of the pyrokinetics I’ve come across are more likely to lose control when they’re angry. Or they’re one step away from becoming firebugs because of the rush it gives them.”

“Class B abilities _do_ tend to be closely tied to the atypical’s mood and emotions,” Joan replies. “It’s only natural for any preexisting conditions to affect the manifestation of someone’s power. Sometimes it’s out of anger, other times it’s out of fear or distress.”

Wadsworth slides the pen that she has been using into place against the clipboard and tucks it under her arm. “So,” she begins, “you’re not going to ask me about how you did on your evaluation?” she asks.

“You probably wouldn’t be allowed to give me an answer anyway,” Joan points out.

“Ah, but that’s the best thing about being in charge. You don’t always have to follow the rules,” says Wadsworth with a laugh. “But all I’ll say is that I don’t think you have anything to worry about. You’re a model example of an employee of the AM, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Thank you, Director.” Joan gathers her belongings and walks toward the door. “I’ll see you later.”

She steps out into the hallway, and Wadsworth is not far behind her. “I have a proposal for you,” Wadsworth says as she falls into step with her.

Joan stops in her tracks. “A proposal?”

“Our meetings in my office have been all well and good,” Wadsworth replies. She turns around to face Joan upon noticing that she has fallen behind. “But sometimes a change of scenery can be useful. So how about you and I go out for drinks tonight?”

“Drinks,” Joan repeats, as if she does not quite understand the meaning of Wadsworth’s suggestion. “That’s, um. That’s quite the departure.”

“Is there anything particularly unusual about a boss taking a subordinate out for drinks in honor of her hard work?”

Joan is used to hearing this tone from her by now, something between reassurance and innocence to indicate that she is not suggesting anything untoward. Their time spent together over the past few months does not always stay within the confines of a normal boss-subordinate relationship, but then again, a lot of things about the AM stray outside of the realm of normalcy. There’s also her overwhelming admiration for Wadsworth that if anything has only increased with every hour that they spend together. She can no longer deny that her initial professional crush now goes far deeper, which opens up an entirely different can of worms regarding the previously unexplored question of her own sexuality. Wadsworth is single, as far as she knows, but as long as she remains unsure about Wadsworth’s true intentions, Joan does not want to embarrass herself by making assumptions about a mutual attraction that may not even exist.

“It would be strictly professional, of course?” she asks.

“It can be whatever you want it to be.” Although Wadsworth’s expression remains mostly impassive, Joan hears the wink of suggestion in her voice. “So? What do you say?”

Joan wets her lips, trying to ignore the excitement and anticipation that swells in her chest. “Yes. That sounds wonderful.”

“Excellent. It’s a date, then. I’ll send you the details soon. Really looking forward to it, Joan.”

She walks away, leaving Joan dizzied and yet oddly elated in the middle of the hallway. It’s not until fifteen minutes later when she sits down to file some paperwork that she realizes that her new plan for the evening (she refuses to think of it as a date, even if Wadsworth has called it such) interferes with something that she has already scheduled with Mark. Navigating the literal and metaphorical distance in their sibling relationship as they get older carries its share of complexities, but by now they have figured out that being in the phone with each other while watching the same movie or TV show makes a passable substitute for spending time face-to-face. As bad as she feels for canceling on him when she has been so busy with work, she would be a fool to double back on her plans with Wadsworth.

She does not have an opportunity to call him until she has returned home from work, where she has a couple of hours to prepare before meeting Wadsworth at their scheduled time. “Hi, Mark,” she says when the call goes to his voicemail. “I’m sorry for the last-minute notice, but I’m going to have to reschedule tonight. A, uh, a work event came up, and I can’t get out of it. Call me back when you have the chance. Love you.”

She ignores the guilty feeling in the pit of her stomach as she makes herself a quick dinner and gets ready to go out. The prospect of the evening that awaits her gradually drives away her guilt, replacing it with the same nervous anticipation that she felt when Wadsworth had suggested that they go out tonight. She replays Wadsworth’s words in her head as she puzzles out the motivation behind her actions. Perhaps the situation truly is as simple as Wadsworth wanting to spend time with her outside of work, and Joan is overthinking the invitation. Wadsworth should know not to cross the line between personal and professional on the off chance that she _is_ seeking something more, especially because of the imbalance of power and authority between them. Then again, very little about Wadsworth is predictable, and so Joan will have to wait and see what the evening holds for her.

Downtown is a bustling place on a Friday night, and Joan circles the streets near the bar a few times in search of parking before going to a parking garage a few blocks away. As she walks out of the garage, she hears the muffled rings of her phone inside her purse. She retrieves it and sees Mark’s name displayed on the screen. A rush of relief passes through her that he has not interrupted her definitely-not-a-date, because she knows he wouldn’t let the subject drop if he found out that she was having drinks with her boss who she _definitely_ doesn’t have a crush on.

“Sorry it took me a couple of hours to call you back,” he says after she answers her phone. “I was busy with a photography favor for a friend. You know, times like these are when texting is _really_ handy.”

“It would have taken me just as long to type everything out as it would to call you,” Joan replies. “And you probably wouldn’t have seen it until now anyway.”

“One day I’m finally going to get you fully immersed in twenty-first century communication,” Mark replies with a laugh. “And I’ll try not to make fun of you _too_ much when you inevitably text like a grandma.”

Joan rolls her eyes but chooses not to respond to his light jab. “Anyway,” she says, “I hope you’re not too upset that I had to cancel our plans tonight. I know I’ve been busy with work lately, but--”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Mark replies. “Some of my friends invited me to a bar trivia thing tonight, anyway. So you haven’t _totally_ ruined my Friday night.” At the silence that follows, during which Joan raises her eyebrows at his new plans for the evening, he groans. “Oh my God, Joanie, I can hear your disapproval through the phone. I’ll be fine. I’m not gonna get trashed or anything.”

“I just think you need to be more careful around alcohol,” says Joan. “Especially at a bar when you don’t know who could be nearby. I don’t want you to cause any incidents because your control is impaired.”

“I’ll be _fine_ ,” Mark repeats. “I’ve been drinking for years--”

“You’ve only been able to legally drink for two years, you know.”

“--and I’ve never had any problems,” he continues on, ignoring her interruption. “Well, okay, there was that one time I almost burned down my dorm, but no one could prove that was me. And if something _does_ happen, I can probably pass it off as a really cool party trick or something. No one will suspect anything.”

Joan purses her lips in silent concern as she crosses the street. She knows that she shouldn’t worry about him, because he is a grown man and all evidence shows that his ability is rarely a problem in his daily life, but it’s her eternal job as an older sister to fret over her little brother. Especially a little brother like Mark, who is often more concerned about having a good time than exercising caution.

“You should be careful regardless,” she says. “Make sure you don’t have _too_ much fun, all right?”

She can almost picture Mark’s eyeroll of exasperation. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll try not to. As long as you promise not to have too much fun at your work thing.”

“I’m sure it’ll be… _interesting_ ,” is all Joan says. “I’ll talk to you soon about rescheduling movie night?”

“You bet,” Mark replies. “Have a good night, Joanie. Love you.”

“Love you too. Good night.”

She returns her phone to her purse. As she continues walking, she scans the businesses lining the street to find the bar where she is meeting Wadsworth. She soon sees Wadsworth already waiting for her, and her heart leaps at how easily she has been able to pick her out among the steady stream of people traversing the sidewalk. Wadsworth almost seems like a different person outside of the AM’s facilities, with her usual pantsuits exchanged for dark skinny jeans, a flowy top, and a pair of heels that even further emphasize her height. “Stunning” is the first descriptor that comes to mind, even though that word certainly straddles the line between professional admiration and something deeper.

“I’m sorry I’m a couple minutes late,” Joan says once she has approached her. “Finding parking on a Friday night is always a nightmare, and then my brother called as I was walking over here which probably slowed me down a little…” She trails off before she starts babbling about anything that she shouldn’t be talking about in her present company.

Wadsworth pushes up her sunglasses that have been blocking the setting early-summer sun. “No worries. I haven’t been waiting long. Shall we go in?”

They enter the bar and find a seat. Joan carefully considers her circumstances while ordering her drink, deciding to take her own advice when it comes to drinking responsibly. Having to drive home tonight is an important limiting factor, of course, but most of all she does not want to make a drunken fool of herself in front of Wadsworth. Who knows what might slip out after consuming one too many drinks--not only regarding her increasingly undeniable attraction, but also about Mark and his ability.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a whiskey woman,” Wadsworth says after they have received their drinks. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Joan?”

“And somehow I’m completely unsurprised that you’re having a very complicated, very gin-heavy martini,” Joan replies. “Perhaps I’m starting to know you a little too well, Director.”

Wadsworth holds up a hand to stop her. “Oh, no. None of that ‘Director’ business. For tonight, it’s Ellie.”

 _Ellie_ \--not Annabelle, the full first name that appears on the AM’s official records and paperwork. The encouragement of a more informal and intimate form of address shatters Joan’s lingering illusions of maintaining professionalism. Her heart races as she takes a sip of her drink and imagines the shape of the name “Ellie” on her lips.

“So,” Wadsworth-- _Ellie_ , Joan reminds herself--says. She draws a finger along the side of her glass before clasping it in her hand to take a drink. “How _is_ your brother?”

A surge of panic rushes through Joan at the possibility that Ellie somehow knows something about Mark and how he is the exact type of atypical that the AM would love to get their hands on. “Why do you want to know about him?” she asks, disguising her near-splutter of surprise with a discreet cough.

“I’m just curious. You don’t seem to talk about him all that much, other than last month when you mentioned that you’d gone to his college graduation. Are the two of you not close?”

“No, we are, It's just...” Joan hesitates, unsure of how to phrase her response so that she does not reveal too much. “It’s been harder for us now that we’re both adults with separate lives. He’s always been my complete opposite, so now that he’s making his own life choices those differences seem more magnified, I suppose. And of course he hates it when I worry about him.”

“The complete opposite of you, huh?” Ellie laughs. “Let me guess, he’s a charming free spirit without a serious bone in his body.”

“That describes him perfectly, actually.” Joan marvels at how she is able to pinpoint Mark so precisely despite having never met him. “He’s a photographer fresh out of art school. Right now he’s mostly doing whatever freelance work he can get, but I think he’s trying to find something a little more permanent. Or at least I _hope_ that’s what he’s doing, and he’s not going to spend the first couple of years of his post-grad life gallivanting around on whatever adventures he can find.”

“Oh, I don’t know. There’s something appealing about searching for adventure as you step out into the unknown. But I see how puts you at odds with him. Because you’re more like me. You know what your goals are, and you want to take the most direct path toward them. Although,” Ellie adds as she reaches for her glass, “there’s nothing wrong with a little adventure every now and then.”

Joan’s eyes are drawn to the dart of her tongue against her lips after she has taken a drink. “And what does ‘adventure’ look like to you?” she asks, moving past the distinct sense that Ellie has stepped into outright flirtation.

“Excitement. Doing things that have never been done before. Taking risks that I know will pay off. Those kinds of things are necessary in our line of work.”

“Is this right here an adventure?” Joan gestures between the two of them. “A risk that you know will pay off?”

This time, Ellie’s low chuckle is more suggestive than amused. “Very astute of you, Joan,” is all she says.

She brushes her thumb across the outside of Joan’s hand in a subtle motion that is direct in its intentions. Ignoring the whisper in her head that tells her to stop whatever this is in its tracks, Joan accepts her touch and slots their fingers together. Their eyes meet, and the upward quirk of satisfaction at the corner of Ellie’s mouth indicates that this display of intimacy is _exactly_ what she wants.

“This is…” Joan clears her throat, momentarily overwhelmed. “This is something more than you just wanting to spend time with me outside of work, isn’t it?”

“Like I said before, it can be whatever you want it to be.” Wadsworth does not yet let go of their entwined hands. “But I’m not blind, Joan. I know how much you’re interested in me. You want me to be more than your friend and mentor.”

Joan swallows against the excitement and nervousness that rises from her chest into her throat. “You’re a fascinating woman, Dir-- _Ellie_.” She catches herself at the last moment, still growing accustomed to the more personal form of address on her lips. “But you’re still my superior. There could be consequences--”

“Not when I’m the one in charge,” Ellie says. She withdraws her touch from Joan’s hand and leans closer to her, curling two fingers under Joan’s chin. At the surprised intake of breath that she receives in response, she gives another low chuckle. “Take the risk, Joan. We could really be something, you and I.”

Joan sees the warmth and hunger in Ellie’s eyes and is certain that she must be dreaming. Any second she will wake up and realize that her attraction has gone too far, but she does not wake. Instead she has the reality of the brush of fingers against her skin and the scent of perfume and gin as Ellie continues to lean close to her.

“Yes,” Joan replies. “I think we could too.”

For a flicker of a moment she thinks that Ellie is going to kiss her right here at the bar, throwing all caution to the wind. Before she can brace herself for the thrill of that possibility, however, Ellie pulls her hand away from her.

“But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves right now,” Ellie says. “Let’s finish our drinks, chat a bit more, and _then_ we can talk about heading back to my place.”

It’s a daring presumption, and Joan’s heart races at the implications of her words. “Okay,” she manages to respond. Her hand closes around her glass, and she drinks to distract herself from the possibilities that fill her imagination. “That, uh, that sounds like a plan.”

“Fantastic.” Ellie drinks as well. “And don’t be nervous, Joan. The night’s only just beginning.”

Joan exhales a breath to dispel some of the anticipatory tension from her body. She takes another drink, and then she surrenders herself to the thrill of the evening ahead of her.


	3. Chapter 3

A little more than an hour later, Joan stands inside Ellie’s (very nice, she can’t help but notice) apartment, hardly daring to believe the series of events that have led her here. A pleasant haziness fills her thoughts, not because of the alcohol that she has consumed but because Ellie’s presence intoxicates her more than liquor ever could. There’s a sense of the forbidden as she steps into a domain far more personal than Ellie’s office, as if she shouldn’t be allowed to be here. She has heard the chatter around the AM about how private Ellie is about her personal life, and yet here she is, entering her home at her invitation. She doubts that any of her colleagues have had this privilege, and so she feels strangely honored as she is encouraged to make herself at home.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Ellie asks. “We can open up a bottle of wine, or…”

“Water will be fine, thanks,” Joan replies. “I _do_ still have to drive home tonight.”

“My invitation is good for the entire night, you know. Or are you afraid of getting so drunk that you feel like you’re being taken advantage of?”

“Let’s just say I prefer to stay in control.”

Ellie’s throaty chuckle confirms that she has caught the unintentional double meaning of her words. “You and me both, Joan.”

She follows Ellie into the kitchen and lingers near the refrigerator as Ellie retrieves two glasses from a cupboard and fills them with water. Her eyes are drawn to the touches of personalization that adorn the exterior of the fridge: a to-do list of household tasks, a partial grocery list, and a few photographs. One picture in particular catches her attention, which depicts Ellie as a young adult with a smiling toddler boy snuggled close to her. Small orange numbers in the bottom corner give the date as “3 20 ‘01”--a little over a decade ago. The boy must be a family member, Joan concludes, or the son of a close friend. It’s strange to think about Ellie having family and friends outside of the AM, even though she knows that work cannot be her _entire_ life.

“My nephew,” Ellie explains. She passes a glass to Joan. “Unfortunately, he’s now at the age where it would be a complete embarrassment for him to be in any recent photos on his favorite aunt’s fridge.”

“His words?” Joan asks.

“Not exactly. But I’m sure you remember how it is in middle school. When ‘embarrassed’ is one of the worst possible things to be.”

Joan murmurs in agreement. “Middle school is a difficult time for many people.”

“He’s a good kid, though,” Ellie continues on. “He lives in the area, so sometimes I’ll watch him for a weekend here and there when my sister and her husband are out of town and I’m not too busy with work. He definitely has a bright future ahead of him, and I think he really looks up to me.”

“I’m sure he’s lucky to have you in his life,” says Joan.

She drinks from her glass of water, if only to give herself something to do as she takes in the sight in front of her. Her eyes are drawn to the touch of Ellie’s lips to her glass, along with the faint smudge of lipstick left behind on the rim after she has taken a sip. She has never wanted to kiss another woman as badly as she does in this moment, and she cannot escape the pull of attraction that works its way through her body.

“What are you thinking about right now, Joan?” Ellie asks.

“I was, um…” She hesitates, not wanting to be so direct with her desires. “It’s nothing.”

“Come on.” Ellie sets her glass on the counter and takes a few steps toward her. “There’s no need to be shy.”

Joan cannot resist the genuine curiosity in her gaze. “I was thinking about what it would be like to kiss you,” she admits.

“Well, I can answer that for you.” Ellie reaches out to touch Joan’s cheek. An exhilarated breath catches itself in her throat at the brush of her fingertips against her skin. “I think it’s about time we let things escalate, don’t you?”

They lean in close to each other in a mutual movement, and Joan tilts her chin up to meet her lips in a kiss. There is nothing tentative or uncertain between them, unlike what Joan would usually expect from a kiss during a first date, and she gives into the power of their shared passion as the kiss deepens. She welcomes the push of Ellie’s tongue into her mouth and the gentle graze of teeth against her bottom lip, a progression that leaves her breathless by the time they have eventually pulled apart.

“Wow,” says Joan after she has regained herself. The phantom sensation of the kiss lingers, and she wants nothing more than to experience it again. “My God, you certainly don’t hold back, do you?”

“I’ve never seen the point of holding back, personally,” Ellie replies. “But if you’re not comfortable with it--”

“No, I am,” Joan interrupts her. Normally she prefers to proceed more slowly on first dates, but now the strength of her desire makes her want to jump in feet first despite entering new territory. “How magnanimous of you to ask, though.”

“There’s no point to any of this if you aren't enjoying yourself.” Ellie runs her thumb along the line of Joan’s jaw and then brings it up to brush across her lips. “But I know you want more. I can feel it.”

“I do. I do want it.”

She exhales against Ellie’s touch and kisses her again. Ellie does not hesitate to take control, pushing her up against one of the walls. This is truly happening, Joan realizes, and she has become the woman who goes home with her boss and makes out with her in her kitchen. It’s not an outcome that she has imagined for herself until recently, but now with Ellie’s hands clamped down around her hips and her mouth against her throat there is no place she would rather be.

They eventually move to the couch in the living room, and Joan yields easily to Ellie’s advances as she gently pushes her back to lie against the cushions. She loses herself in the junction of their mouths until nothing else matters. For now, her entire world is the desperate grind of their bodies against each other and the warmth of Ellie’s skin beneath her fingertips as she slips her touch under her shirt. Ellie hums in appreciation before breaking their kiss long enough to speak.

“If you want me to take my shirt off, all you have to do is ask,” she says.

“This is me asking, then,” Joan replies. “But shouldn’t we take this elsewhere? Or close the curtains, at least? I know it’s unlikely that anyone can see in, but I still feel like we’re a little exposed.”

Ellie lets out a low chuckle. “All right. Follow me.”

She eases her weight away from her and stands up. Joan takes the hand that she offers to her and trails behind her, maintaining the tight grasp of their hands as they enter Ellie’s bedroom. She barely has a chance to get her bearings before Ellie pulls her shirt over her head in one swift motion. Joan’s eyes are immediately drawn to the shape of her breasts beneath the dark fabric and lace trim of her bra, and in her admiration she forgets that she should probably do something beyond staring mesmerized while anticipating the possibilities of what will happen next.

She is saved from making a choice when Ellie continues to take initiative, rucking up the bottom of Joan’s shirt before she takes the hint and helps her remove it. In the feverish exchange of kisses that follows, they slowly make their way to the bed. They lie side-by-side facing each other, taking a quiet moment to breathe together before they proceed. Ellie reaches out to push aside the strands of hair that have fallen in front of Joan’s face, and Joan holds her hand there, her thumb running along the sensitive underside of her wrist.

“You’ve never been with a woman before, have you, Joan?” Ellie asks.

Joan hesitates, unsure if she should be embarrassed to admit that thus far her only sexual experiences have been with men. “No, I can’t say that I have,” she replies, deciding to leave out the detail of how she has only recently become aware that she may not be as straight as she previously thought.

“Don’t worry,” Ellie assures her. “You can always follow my lead if you need to.”

“I think I can figure it out.”

Joan closes the scant amount of distance between them to kiss her briefly, and then she pulls down the straps of Ellie’s bra over her shoulders in a silent request. Ellie finishes what she started and reaches around to unhook her bra, taking it off to allow her breasts to fall free. An appreciative inhale of breath rises in Joan’s lungs, but she does not let herself become in admiration for long. One of her hands skims across the exposed skin of Ellie’s stomach, traveling upwards to cup around one of her breasts. She brings her mouth down to the other, her lips closing around the dusky nub of her nipple.

“Keep going,” Ellie encourages her. Her fingers stroke through Joan’s hair, tangling themselves into the strands. “God, Joan, you’re so fucking good.”

Her praise sends a shiver of pleasure through Joan’s body, and she wants to hear the words again and again, satisfied in the knowledge that Ellie is pleased with her work. When she eventually pulls her mouth away from her, she takes a moment to admire the shape of her body beside her, still unconvinced that this isn’t an elaborate dream or fantasy. No imagined scenario could ever feel so real, however, and she is eager to see it through to its conclusion.

“Want me to take over for a while?” Ellie asks.

Joan nods. She undresses a little further, removing her bra and casting it aside before rolling over onto her back. Ellie positions herself above her, and her mouth is warm and wet against her skin as she kisses her way down her body. She trails a path from the ridge of her collarbone, across her breasts, and down her stomach to the curve of her hips. With each touch of her lips, Joan’s arousal rises to dizzying new heights that make her never want to come down.

“You are incredible, Joan,” Ellie says. She undoes the button and zipper of Joan’s pants. “So incredible.”

Joan lifts her hips so that Ellie can tug her pants down over her legs. Her heartbeat quickens as Ellie’s hand slides into her underwear, and she spreads her legs wider to accommodate her. A gasp of breath escapes from her when Ellie’s thumb brushes against her clit in a motion that sends a shockwave of pleasure throughout her body. It’s not long before her underwear comes off as well, and Ellie smirks in satisfaction with every sound she is able to draw from her as they fall into the rhythm of sex.

“Please, Ellie,” Joan begs. “ I--I need--”

“What do you need?” Ellie prompts her.

Joan presses a hand against her mouth to stifle the noise that wants to leave her lips. Ellie gently pries Joan’s fingers away from her mouth with her free hand so that the sound can slip out. She leans close to her as her other hand continues to work her down below, and Joan can hear her calm, measured breaths mingling with her own staccato breathing.

“What do you need, Joan?” Ellie repeats.

“I--” Coherent words are far from her primary focus right now, but she manages to stumble out a response. “I need _more_. I need _you_.”

“Mm. I can give you that.”

Ellie’s words are low in her ear before she brings her mouth downward, never ceasing the motion of her hand even as she moves her lips and tongue across sensitive skin. The fire of arousal within Joan rises until it has consumed her completely, burning with the need to release with Ellie’s relentless momentum. It doesn’t take long until she reaches her crescendo, and as her heart pounds and her body trembles she looks upon Ellie, hardly believing that this brilliant, incredible woman whom she admires more than anyone else has brought her to this state of pure bliss.

“That was…” She takes a deep breath to gather herself as her heart rate continues to slow. “That was amazing.”

“It doesn’t have to stop here, you know,” says Ellie. “Unless I’ve worn you out already?”

“I might need a minute first, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Ellie’s kiss lingers against her lips before she pulls away. “Is there anything else you need in the meantime?”

“I could use the rest of that glass of water in the kitchen.”

“Coming right up.”

Ellie rises from the bed, not bothering to redress her top half. Joan cannot take her eyes off her until she disappears around the corner to leave her alone in the room. Now that her attention is now longer focused elsewhere, she takes in the details of the bedroom more fully. The space is clean and elegant, muted in its colors and refined in its decor. Joan’s immediate impression is that Ellie leans toward extravagant taste that she is not afraid to show off, a stark contrast to her own purely functional approach to personalizing her space.

As she waits for Ellie’s return, she settles herself comfortably against the soft duvet and satin pillowcases. The awed thought of _I am lying naked in Ellie Wadsworth’s bed and we just had the best sex I’ve had in a long time_ cycles through her mind, and as much as she knows that she should be concerned about the massive breach of professional boundaries that has occurred, she cannot bring herself to care. The question of how their interactions will proceed at work now that they have been in bed together will have to be a problem for another day.

Just as she begins to think that Ellie has been gone too long to have merely retrieved a glass of water from the kitchen, she enters the room with two glasses of water in her hands. She sets one on the bedside table and passes the other to Joan as she joins her on the bed.

“I topped it off for you,” says Ellie. “Also, I think your phone was ringing where you left it in your purse. You might want to check your messages later.”

“Thanks for letting me know.” Joan takes a drink from the glass. “It’s probably just my brother drunk-dialing me or something.”

She does not vocalize her realization that for the first time in the many years that she has spent as Mark’s older sister, she may be having a more adventurous night than he is. She has already decided that he can never know about what has happened here, as much as she knows that he would be delighted to learn that he may no longer have the monopoly on bisexuality between the Bryant siblings. She’s not sure if she wants to expose herself to him as the kind of woman who sleeps with her boss--not that she is ashamed of how the night is proceeding ( _definitely_ not ashamed, she tells herself as her eyes linger appreciatively on Ellie), but because she is aware of how this entire affair is very much unlike her.

She sets the glass of water on the bedside table and pulls Ellie into a kiss, wordlessly expressing her desire to continue where they left off. Ellie yields to her, and there’s something intoxicating in seeing her laid out on the bed, looking up at her with hungry and expectant eyes. If Joan didn’t know better, she would suspect that Ellie _wants_ to see her take charge of her--but Ellie always has something hidden up her sleeve to let her maintain the air of authority that she carries with her at all times.

“You really are something else, Joan,” Ellie says as Joan tugs her pants over her hips. “Show me how good you are.”

Joan obliges. As she and Ellie entwine together, her thoughts grow hazy until her mind is filled with nothing but this moment, and she floats on the high of desire and bliss that carries her long after the night has ended.


	4. Chapter 4

Several weeks later, Mark goes missing.

At first Joan doesn’t think much of it when a day goes by without a response to a voicemail that she has left him, because God knows she hasn’t always been the best at calling him back in a timely manner upon becoming busier with her work at the AM. But when one day becomes two, and then two days become three, a knot of worry forms in the pit of her stomach with each additional call that goes unanswered. No adventure that he could have disappeared on would have caused him to go this long without responding to her, even if he has nothing to say other than “I’m fine, Joanie, stop bothering me.” Her fears are not assuaged when she contacts some of his friends and learns that they don’t know where he is either. As much as she does not want to jump to conclusions, she cannot shake the feeling that something terrible has happened to him.

“I’ve never gone this long without hearing back from him,” she admits to Ellie in her office after five days of no contact from Mark. “We sometimes do the whole freeze-out thing when we’re mad at each other, but as far as I know he has no reason to be upset with me. And it really worries me that none of his friends know where he is either. If he’s gone off somewhere, surely he would have mentioned something to at least one of them, right? I just--” She breaks off with a defeated sigh. “I’m not sure what to do.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Ellie assures her. “You’re a smart woman, Joan. And from what you’ve told me about Mark, he sounds like he’s more than capable of taking care of himself. You shouldn’t worry.”

She speaks with such conviction that Joan wants to believe her, but she cannot let go of her concerns so easily when Mark may be in danger. In the back of her mind she cannot escape the possibility that his ability was discovered and the AM has subsequently snatched him up. But that can’t be the case, she tells herself firmly. Surely if they had brought him in someone would have contacted her as both his sister and an employee of the organization. She considers asking Ellie if she has heard anything on that front, but she cannot risk exposing him if his disappearance has no connection to the AM. She has not kept his secret for so long to reveal it now in her fear.

“I haven’t told our parents yet,” she admits. “I know I should, because they deserve to know that he’s missing, but to be honest I’m not sure if he would want me to tell them. He cut contact with them a few years ago after they had a huge falling-out, and I don’t exactly speak to them regularly either. And telling them that he’s disappeared and I have no idea where he is--it would feel like I’ve failed. I’ve always been the one who’s taken care of him and protected him, ever since we were kids, and now… God, I can’t face the possibility that I’ve failed him. I _can’t_.”

All of the emotions that have welled up inside of her over the past few days threaten to spill out, but she refuses to break down in front of Ellie. No matter what recent turns their relationship has taken, she is not ready to be emotionally vulnerable in front of her, especially regarding deeply personal matters.

Ellie rises from her chair. “Hey. Come here,” she says.

The gentle note in her voice encourages Joan’s approach. Before she fully realizes what is happening, Ellie has enfolded her in an embrace. Despite all of the intimacy that they have exchanged over the past several weeks, nothing between them has approached this level of a comforting gesture. Everything until now has been born out of only passion and desire, but as she stands here with Ellie’s arms around her, Joan believes that she truly cares about her.

“I’m afraid there’s not much I can do to help you,” says Ellie. “But whenever you need to talk, I’ll be here.”

“Thank you, Ellie,” Joan replies. She has tried to maintain the professionalism of calling her “Director” while they are at work, but when they are alone the more casual form of address often slips out. She exhales a trembling breath before pulling away from her. “I just hope this is the last time I have to talk to you about it. I’m sure he’ll be back before I know it, and I’ll feel silly for worrying.”

“That’s the spirit.” Ellie squeezes her shoulder reassuringly. As she steps away from her, the phone on her desk rings. “Excuse me, I need to get that.”

“Should I--?” Joan gestures toward the door, but Ellie waves a hand for her to be quiet.

“Wadsworth here,” she says into the phone. A delighted smile crosses her face as she listens to the person on the other end of the phone. “Oh, really? That’s _excellent_ news. I’ll be there shortly to check in. Thanks for letting me know.” She hangs up the phone and returns her attention to Joan. “Well, Joan, I have to go take care of some very important business, so unfortunately I have to cut our time short. But we’re still on for this weekend, right?”

“Yes, of course.” They have so far mostly kept their affair out of the office, but that does not stop Ellie from making time in her busy schedule to spend time with her outside of work--getting coffee, dinner, or drinks before they inevitably end up in bed together. “I’ll see you later, Director.”

She walks toward the door, and as she opens it Ellie’s voice pulls her attention back into the room. “Joan,” she says. “I really do hope everything works out with your brother.”

“Yes.” A swell of sadness rises within her, coupled with a sense of gratitude that she has Ellie as a confidant. “I hope so too.”

 

* * *

 

As the weeks pass with no contact from Mark, Joan grows increasingly less confident in her hope that his disappearance is a temporary one. She’d filed a missing persons report with the police, but the lack of follow-up on that front makes her doubt that anyone has looked into the case. Instead she only has a deep worry that eats at her like a parasite, crawling through her guts and gnawing at her stomach with the fear that he has come to harm. She has never felt such a strong degree of fear in her life, and now it lives beside her like a constant shadow that she cannot dismiss.

Two months after Mark’s disappearance, in a moment of nostalgia Joan pulls out the treasured notebook in which the two of them had exchanged notes regularly throughout their childhood and now occasionally in their adulthood. For the past several months the communication has been mostly one-sided on Joan’s part, as she writes down the things that she has not had the chance to say to him face-to-face. She has not written much since his disappearance, unsure of what to say when she has no idea when or if she will see him again, but today feels like as good a day as any to try to put her thoughts into words.

 _Dear Mark,_ she writes. _It’s been almost two months since I last talked to you. I think this is the longest we’ve ever gone without communicating in any way, and I hate it. I know I haven’t been the most available for you to talk to in the past year, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to tell you about things that remind me of you, or ask you how your post-grad job search is going. But I can’t, because I know you won’t be there. Maybe I’ll start writing it all in here, and when I see you again we’ll laugh because I won’t remember what half of the things refer to. Until then I’ll have to_

A knock at the door interrupts her before she can finish the sentence. Her heart leaps into her throat as she entertains the two possible outcomes that accompany an unexpected visitor: one, that Mark has decided to surprise her by showing up unannounced after weeks of no contact, or two, that a stranger stands on the other side of the door ready to give her the worst news of her life. She hides the notebook safely away in one of her desk drawers and opens the door to reveal neither of the two alternatives that she expects. Instead it is Ellie who stands in the doorway, and the anxiety in the pit of Joan’s stomach turns into curiosity.

“Ellie,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

“I had some weekend work to do in the office today and thought I’d swing by after I was done,” Ellie replies. “One of your neighbors was kind enough to let me into the building.”

“That doesn’t explain _why_ you’re here, though.” Joan steps aside to allow her to enter the apartment. “You don’t usually invite yourself over like this.”

“Did you really think I would let a special day go unnoticed?” Ellie holds up the gift bag that she carries with her. “Happy birthday, Joan.”

“Oh, um. Thank you.” She takes the gift from her as they move into the living room. “You know, you really didn’t have to--”

“Of course I did.” Ellie sits down next to her on the couch and nudges her gently, knee bumping against knee. “So?” she prompts her. “Are you going to open it?”

The eagerness in her voice sends a flutter through Joan’s heart as she opens the bag and pulls out a heavy object wrapped in tissue paper. “Wow, this is _very_ nice,” she says upon unwrapping it to reveal a bottle of scotch. “You certainly went all-out.”

“I know how much you love your dark liquors, so I couldn’t resist,” Ellie replies. “I thought it would make a great addition to your liquor cabinet.”

“My very _sad_ liquor cabinet.” Joan sets the bottle down on the coffee table. “Thank you, Ellie. This was very thoughtful.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

Joan leans in to kiss her, and what she initially intends to be a quick gesture of gratitude lingers for a few seconds longer. Ellie slides a hand up over her knee to rest it on her thigh, and Joan meets her touch with her own hand before withdrawing from their kiss.

“So do you have anything exciting planned for today?” Ellie asks.

Joan raises her eyebrows. “Is that a proposition?”

“I’m just curious,” says Ellie. “It’s your birthday, after all. I’m sure you’re doing _something_ to celebrate.”

“I was thinking of just ordering some takeout, opening a bottle of wine, and settling in with some music and a nice, relaxing bath. A quiet celebration, I suppose.”

Ellie laughs. “Oh, Joan. Now _that_ won’t do. Come on, you’re still young. You should be out there living it up and having a good time.”

Maybe in different circumstances Joan _would_ have celebrated by going out for drinks or having friends over, but she has had to make certain sacrifices for the sake of her work with the AM, and her social life is certainly one of them. Although she has kept in touch with a few of her grad school friends who remain in the area, she has not seen any of them in months due to her busy work schedule. She has closed herself off even further since Mark’s disappearance as well, too ashamed to admit to anyone that she has failed by not knowing how or where to find him. She knows that it isn’t the healthiest approach, but despite her career as a psychologist she is not always a model of ideal behavior.

“There’s nothing wrong with staying in and treating yourself on your birthday,” she says.

“Oh, trust me, I know. I always look forward to taking the day off and having some quality ‘me time’ every year. But there’s also something to be said about spending your birthday with people who are important to you.” Ellie reaches out to touch Joan’s cheek. Her hand brushes against a few strands of hair to tuck them behind her ear. “Which is why I’m taking you out to dinner tonight.”

“You… are?” Joan can hardly focus with the touch of her fingers against the curve of her ear. “That’s very generous of you.”

“It’s the least I can do for you,” says Ellie. She withdraws her hand from Joan’s face. “Unless you’d rather have your night in?”

“No,” Joan replies immediately, not wanting to give her the wrong idea. “Dinner sounds wonderful, actually. Thank you.”

“Excellent. Because I already have a reservation for us downtown at seven.”

Joan isn’t sure whether she is impressed or disconcerted by Ellie’s preparedness, but she certainly admires her confidence in taking a pre-emptive course of action without the fear of rejection. “That’s two and a half hours from now,” she says. “Don’t tell me you have plans for us until then as well.”

“Oh, I can think of a few things we can do.” The gleam in Ellie’s eyes tells Joan everything she needs to know. “I didn’t come here just to give you a bottle of scotch and take you to dinner, after all.”

“Now _that’s_ a proposition, isn’t it?”

Ellie laughs. “You’ve always been a quick study, Joan.”

They kiss again, and at the touch of Ellie’s lips all of Joan’s worries and anxieties fade into the back of her mind. “Bedroom?” she asks after she has pulled away from Ellie.

A half-smile quirks up the corner of Ellie’s mouth. “You don’t want us to fuck here on your couch?”

“What can I say, I suppose I’m hopelessly traditional,” says Joan. “And not that the couch isn’t comfortable, but if you intend to keep us occupied for most of the time before dinner I think the bedroom is a better choice.”

“Well, it sounds like I have my work cut out for me,” Ellie replies with an appreciative chuckle. “I never thought you’d be so ambitious.”

“I learned from the best.”

“Mm,” Ellie agrees as they both rise from the couch. “You certainly did.”

They make their way into Joan’s bedroom. As soon as the door is closed behind them, Ellie captures her in another kiss, and somewhere in their shared passion they stumble toward the bed. Joan tugs at Ellie’s blazer to pull it over her shoulders and cast it aside, but the grip of Ellie’s hand against her wrist stops her before she can do so.

“Oh, no,” says Ellie, “You don’t get to do any of the work. For now, you just get to lie back while I treat you like a queen.”

Joan is certainly not going to object to that, and so she settles herself comfortably on her bed and surrenders herself to Ellie’s meticulous attention. Sex between them has grown so familiar, but she continues to feel a thrill in the pit of her stomach even months after their first encounter. Each touch of hands and lips against her skin reminds her that whatever exists between them is more than a one-time fling as a bid for power or favor. They do not talk about their feelings very often, but when she and Ellie are in bed together Joan feels the fire of the loyalty and devotion shared between them. It burns brighter and stronger than anything that she has ever felt, and it speaks louder than any words she could say.

Later, when they lie entwined in each other’s arms, there is something almost _loving_ in the embrace they share. With her eyes closed and the warmth of Ellie’s body surrounding her, Joan knows nothing except for this extraordinary woman next to her. Light touches and lazy kisses keep them in bed as the clock ticks closer to when they have to leave to make their dinner reservation in time, but soon they can no longer delay the next stage of the evening that Ellie has planned for them.

“I should find something to wear to dinner,” Joan says. She rises from the bed and retrieves her bra and underwear from where they had been previously discarded. As she partially redresses, she is aware of Ellie’s appreciative eyes upon her. “Going out wasn’t exactly part of my agenda for today, after all. And unless you have another outfit in your car, I don’t want to look underdressed next to you in your work clothes.”

“I’m sure you’ll find something,” Ellie replies. “You’ve never looked bad all the other times we’ve gone out.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Joan approaches her closet and stares at its contents, waiting for something to call out to her. She hears Ellie’s movement behind her, and soon she feels the touch of a hand at her waist. She turns her head to see that Ellie is now minimally dressed with her blouse loosely buttoned over her bare breasts and nothing on her bottom half but her underwear. The look is oddly attractive on her, but by now Joan has come to the conclusion that _everything_ looks good on her.

“I’m going to pop into your bathroom and freshen up,” Ellie says. She looks over Joan’s shoulder into the depths of her closet. “And I’d go with the dark green cardigan, by the way. It suits you.”

Joan gives another glance to the sweater in question, which she has taken off the rack in her closet along with a couple of others in her deliberation. She trusts Ellie’s judgment, and so she removes it from the hanger and returns the others to their place in the closet. She then finds a top and pants to match the cardigan and lays them out on her bed before joining Ellie in making herself look presentable enough that no one will suspect that the two of them have spent the better part of the past two hours in bed together.

Half an hour later, Ellie stands waiting near the door as Joan gathers up her belongings. “Are you planning on coming back here afterward?” Joan asks. “I’m just wondering if it’ll be more efficient to take two cars if you’re leaving after we’re finished with dinner.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m happy to drive you regardless,” says Ellie. “And I’ll probably stick around for a little while after dinner, but I can’t stay over. My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew are coming over for brunch tomorrow, so I have to be up early to start cooking.”

Joan retrieves her keys from where she has left them on the kitchen table. “That sounds like quite the ordeal.”

“Well, I can’t break my lengthy streak of making the superior brunch, can I? Rebecca would never let me live it down.”

Ellie has briefly mentioned her sister on a few previous occasions, but Joan has never had the opportunity to ask for more details before the conversation turns elsewhere. Certain parts of her personal life remain a mystery despite the increased amount of time that Joan now spends time with her outside of work, and she is perpetually curious about what defines Ellie’s life outside of their clandestine relationship and her work with the AM. After all, Joan has found herself sharing more and more details about Mark over the past couple of months, and so it is only fair for Ellie to show a similar level of openness about her family.

“Have you and your sister always been competitive like that?” she asks.

“As long as I can remember. Of course, she’s seven years older than me, so it took a little while before I could keep up. It wasn’t exactly equal footing when she was the valedictorian of her high school graduating class while I was dominating the fifth grade science fair. And sure, some people might say that she’s the more successful one now because she’s an accomplished neurosurgeon while also raising a family of her own, but I’m running a division of a covert government agency that deals in superpowered humans. It evens out.” Ellie gives a brief laugh. “But rivalries are a natural part of having siblings, at least in my experience. I’m sure you and your brother are the same way.”

Joan notes her use of the present tense when she mentions Mark. As much as she herself has tried to cling to optimism in the wake of his disappearance, she occasionally slips into the mistake of thinking about how he _was_ instead of how he _is_. Every time she catches herself falling into the past tense, she feels like she has betrayed him by even subconsciously believing that he has come to harm, and her failure to keep him safe is thrown into harsher light.

“We’ve certainly had our competitive moments,” she replies. “When we were kids we’d get _very_ intense about board games and who had won the most times. But I think mostly I was just jealous of how everything came so naturally to him. He was smart and talented and popular without having to put in any effort, and that drove me crazy sometimes. _Drives_ me crazy, I suppose,” she corrects herself, and the familiar wave of failure passes through her.

Ellie takes a few steps closer to her and rests her hands on her shoulders. “Chin up, Joan,” she says. “I’m sure he’s out there somewhere, wishing he could be with his big sister on her birthday.”

But if that were the case, Joan thinks as she sinks back into the doubtful part of herself, then surely he would have at least _called_. It can’t be that he has forgotten or that he has been too busy to talk to her, because this is the same person who always makes sure to call her just after midnight on every birthday that they have spent apart thus far. She wishes she could share Ellie’s confidence, but it is hard for her to believe that Mark is okay when she knows the patterns of his behavior and what today’s lack of communication must mean.

“I hope so,” is all she says.

Ellie kisses her forehead in a surprisingly tender gesture. “Come on. We don’t want to be late to the restaurant. There’s still lots to celebrate, after all.”

She squeezes Joan’s shoulder before letting go, and the reassuring smile that she offers her almost convinces her that she has nothing to fear.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Warning:** This chapter contains depictions of the emotional manipulation of a patient - nothing necessarily worse than anything that's shown/referenced in canon, but I figured I'd give a heads up anyway.

Time stretches onward to reach a point where Joan now tracks the interval since Mark’s disappearance in years rather than months, and not a day goes by when she does not worry about his fate. No matter how much she tries to convince herself otherwise, he has been gone too long for her to expect a happy ending. Her heart twists at the thought of him becoming yet another statistic, an unsolved missing persons case that the police likely never followed up on due to a lack of leads. As her ideas to locate him run out, she feels more like a failure than ever for not doing more to find him.

But her life must continue on despite the weight of guilt that she carries with her, and so she throws herself into her work even more fully. If she cannot find Mark, then at least she can help other atypicals through both her research and her direct work with them. It’s not always an easy job, of course, but Joan knows that this is where she needs to be: doing her small part to move the AM forward into a greater understanding of atypicals and their abilities.

One afternoon, she is reviewing some of her notes from a recent session with a patient when Agent Green stops at her desk as he passes by. “Director Wadsworth would like to see you in her office,” he says.

Joan frowns. Most of her time spent with Ellie at work is arranged through emails and phone calls that come directly from Ellie herself. If she is using Green as her middleman, this invitation is not likely a personal one, but rather a purely business matter, perhaps an inquiry about the research proposal that she had submitted a few days earlier.

“Right now?” she asks.

“She seemed rather insistent on it, yes.”

Joan puts aside her files and rises from her chair. “All right. Thank you for letting me know.”

When she enters Ellie’s office a few minutes later, Ellie immediately focuses her full attention upon her, as if nothing is more important than her company. “Ah, Joan. I was hoping you wouldn’t be too busy to see me,” she says. “Sit down, I have some good news.”

Joan obediently takes a seat in front of her desk. “Good news?” she repeats, and for a hopeful second she wonders if Ellie has gone above and beyond to bring Mark home to her. But she has no reason to believe that, she reminds herself. Even though Ellie has remained a listening ear and a bastion of reassurance to her as she continues to worry about Mark, surely she is far too busy to look into his disappearance herself.

“You’ve been doing some exemplary work with us for the past couple of years,” Ellie says. “Your emphasis on using the patients’ sensory experiences to help them understand their abilities has led to some productive results, and your latest findings on variations in telekinesis will be a huge help in our efforts to develop more specific classification systems. And that’s just your recent work.” She clasps her hands together and leans forward slightly in her seat. “Overall, you’ve impressed me, Joan. Which is why you’re being promoted.”

“Wow. That’s, um…” The news of the promotion is already enough to send heart racing in excitement, but what truly touches her is the praise of her work. After spending so long being consistently impressed by Ellie herself, the compliment is enormous no matter how many prior times she has heard it from her. “Thank you, Director. I can’t say I was expecting this.”

“Well, just between you and me, this has been a long time coming,” says Ellie. “But you know how slowly bureaucracy moves, and HR has been absolutely useless lately. But everything’s official now. Effective next week, you’ll be working with some of our Tier 4 patients in addition to what you’ve already been doing in Tiers 1 through 3. You’ll also have increased security clearance, and you’ll be able to witness some of our Tier 4 experimental trials and access previously classified research about those projects.”

The mention of Tier 4 sparks Joan’s interest even further. She has been aware of the existence of higher-tier programs in the AM for years, but the only concrete details she knows about them is that they are generally designed for patients who require more long-term support than the usual two-to-ten-week programs. She has always been curious about what kinds of atypicals are admitted to Tier 4 and whether they have stronger or more dangerous powers than the patients in the lower tiers. The trove of information that awaits her sends a tingle of excitement through her body with the endless possibilities that it contains.

“That sounds wonderful,” she says. “I can’t wait to get started.” Then, aware of how the promotion looks in the light of their secret affair, she adds, “This--this isn’t just because I’m sleeping with you, is it?”

Ellie gives a brief laugh. “Of course not. I’m not in the habit of promoting people just because I’m in bed with them. That’s not good business.”

“Good.” Joan does not bother to conceal her sigh of relief. “Is there anything else you need me for? I was working on this week’s patient reports before you called me in, but those can wait if you’d rather--”

“No, no. I wouldn’t want to keep you from anything,” Ellie says. “We can celebrate on our own time later. I unfortunately have to stay late in the office tonight, lots of deadlines to keep on top of with the end of the quarter coming up, but I might be able to squeeze something in tomorrow night. I’ll let you know.” She stands up from her desk, and Joan rises to meet her. “And Joan,” she adds, laying a hand on her shoulder, “I really am proud of you.”

A burst of joy swells in Joan’s heart at the reinforcement that the brilliant and impossibly intelligent woman in front of her sees the value and potential of her work. “Thank you,” she says. She pulls Ellie into an embrace despite the wholly professional nature of this meeting. “I won’t let you down.”

When she pulls away, she sees the fond smile on Ellie’s face. “You never could, Joan.”

 

* * *

 

During the first few days after Joan’s promotion, she mostly takes advantage of her increased privileges and higher security clearance from a research perspective, diving into the new files that she has at her disposal to learn about some of the AM’s less-publicized projects. Tier 4, as it turns out, utilizes several experimental programs that go far beyond the usual seminars and counseling that the patients in the lower tiers participate in. The notes on drug development catch her attention in particular. All of her previous training with the AM has emphasized that many pharmaceuticals do not mesh well with the brains and biology of most atypicals, but now her curiosity grows with the evidence to the contrary sitting in front of her

“I want you to talk to a patient who is starting the preliminary phase of one of our drug trials, actually,” Ellie says when Joan asks her about the research. “I’ve found that it’s helpful for the patient to talk to someone beforehand to set them more at ease and understand why exactly they’re taking part in the trial.”

“Wouldn’t someone else be better suited for that, though?” Joan replies. “You and some of the medical teams are the ones that have been developing the drugs. I only found out about the trials recently.”

“Yes, but you’re the psychologist among us. You’ve always been good at talking to the patients and getting them to open up a little. Things like that can often make the experiments go much more smoothly, especially if the patient has formed a rapport and is willing to trust that this is in their best interests.”

“Their best interests?” Joan frowns as she follows Ellie into the elevator that will take them to the Tier 4 wing of the facilities. “You say that like they’re being coerced into participating. They _are_ taking part voluntarily, aren’t they?’

“This isn’t mad science, Joan. We may be wading into uncharted territory with this work, but that doesn’t mean we’re operating completely outside of scientific and medical ethics.” Ellie passes her a file that she carries with her. “Here’s the patient’s file. Feel free to familiarize yourself before you meet with her.”

As the elevator continues its descent, Joan reads the pages contained in the file. The patient is female, twenty-two years old, and a C-6 classification shapeshifter. Nothing in her profile seems out of the ordinary, at least as far as atypicals go, and if Joan didn’t know otherwise she would expect the patient to be in a Tier 1 or 2 program. There must be more that the file does not say to explain why this patient is in a more rigorous and experimental program.

Ten minutes later, after Joan has absorbed the relevant details from the file, she meets with the patient in one of the rooms used for counseling and therapy sessions. To her surprise when it comes to shapeshifters, the young woman in front of her closely matches the photograph in her patient profile. After hearing various horror stories from her colleagues about the difficulties in entering shapeshifters into the AM’s systems because of their frequent changes in appearance, she is relieved that this particular shapeshifter maintains at least some degree of consistency in how she presents herself.

“Hi, Erika, how are you?” Joan says to her. “My name is Dr. Bright, and I’m one of the psychologists here. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.” Erika accepts her outstretched hand in a handshake. The two of them sit across from each other, and Joan notices her nervous fidgeting as she settles down. “Is this… Is this another psych eval? I already had one when I came in last week.”

“It’s not an official one. But it’s often helpful to give patients a safe space to talk and ask questions before they take part in our experimental programs.” Joan makes sure to speak with confidence despite being new to this aspect of her work. “Let’s start by talking about some of the basics. You first came to the AM for a Tier 1 program… six years ago, correct?” She consults the file to be sure.

“Yeah,” Erika replies. “A year or so after I became aware of my power, I got a call from the AM saying that they knew about what I could do and they could help me. I guess they keep an eye out for atypicals in the wild, or something?”

“Yes,” says Joan. “For people like you whose powers manifest physically, there’s more of a concern about exposure, and so our field agents try to bring them in before they cause any problems. I’m sure they were relieved that they were able to get the necessary information to contact you. Shapeshifters can be notoriously difficult to pin down sometimes.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.” Erika gives a slight laugh. “Anyway, once it was clear that the AM was legit and not, you know, some kind of sketchy organization trying to kidnap me, my parents convinced me that I should come here and try one of the programs.”

“And did you find your time in the Tier 1 program to be helpful?” Joan asks.

Erika nods. “I did, yeah. I was able to gain better control, and in my counseling sessions we figured out that I was mostly shifting to find the freedom of being able to do certain things without worrying about what other people thought of me--because I didn’t look like me, you know?”

“Do you feel like you become someone else when you use your ability?”

“I guess? It’s more like putting on a mask, a really good one where no one else knows that it’s you underneath. And back then I started spending so much time with a mask on that I’d sometimes lose the sense of who I actually was, if that makes any sense.”

“It does,” says Joan. “Being worried about what other people think of us is a natural concern during adolescence, and it often doesn’t go away even after reaching adulthood. But relying on your ability to ease those fears isn’t always the best answer, especially when it begins to have a negative effect on you.”

“Yeah, I know. The program that I did here helped me deal with that. And then after I went back to my regular life, things were pretty okay for a long time. I wasn’t losing control or using my ability as a crutch as often. I mainly just used it for little things in private. You know, like trying out a new haircut before committing to it or making myself a little taller to reach something on a high shelf.”

“It sounds like quite the success story.” A swell of pride rises inside Joan at the reminder of how much the AM truly can help atypicals live better lives. “So what led you to return for another inpatient program years later? Did something change in your control over your ability?”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Erika fidgets nervously against the cushions of the couch. “I know it looks bad that I started slipping after six years, but--”

“There’s no shame in seeking additional help, Erika,” Joan says. “It’s not uncommon for atypicals to take part in our programs at multiple points throughout their lives. The relationship between a person and their ability rarely progresses in a straight line. There are going to be ups and downs, and that’s okay.”

“I know.” Erika huffs out a breath. “It’s just frustrating after having everything under control for so long.”

“Are you comfortable talking about what caused the change?” Joan asks. “Was there a specific point where you felt like you started losing control, or was it more gradual?”

“It was definitely a specific point. And from there, everything started spiraling, I guess.” Erika averts her eyes downward, staring at her entwined hands in her lap as if she is unsure of what to say next.

“Tell me more about that initial moment,” Joan encourages her.

Erika takes a deep breath to steel herself against whatever memories accompany what she is about to share. “So a few months ago I was at a bar with a couple of friends,” she begins. “None of us were drunk or anything, we were just having one or two drinks each and hanging out. And at one point I was coming back from the bathroom and I passed by this guy who was being really gross toward a girl probably around my age. Like, it was obvious that she didn’t know who he was and didn’t want anything to do with him, but he wouldn’t leave her alone. And it… Well, it _really_ pissed me off. I should have just done that whole ‘women having each other’s backs’ thing--you know, when you pretend that you’re a friend who’s been looking for her and escort her away from the guy to give her a safe out. But it was like something came over me, and before I knew what was happening I shifted into someone else. I walked right up to the guy and told him to get away from her, and when he didn’t I punched him straight in the face. And then a couple more times for good measure. Then the bartender broke us up, and I ran before anything else could happen. I got out of sight, shifted back into myself, and went back to my friends like I didn’t just give a complete stranger a bloody nose and a black eye.”

She looks at Joan as if she is expecting a negative response or even a scolding for taking such an explosive course of action. Joan’s position does not allow her to pass judgment on her patients, however, and so she proceeds with the objective view that is required of her.

“Why do you think you reacted that way?” she asks. “Is anger and violence something that comes easily to you?”

“I mean, I have a bit of a quick temper sometimes,” Erika admits. “I hate seeing people treated badly in any way. And pretty much every woman knows how scary it is to have a guy creeping on you, right?”

“Yes,” says Joan. “That is unfortunately a common experience for many women.”

“Yeah, so I definitely wasn’t going to sit back and let that happen to someone else. But I’d never done anything like that before, and I don’t think I would have done it if I wasn’t able to shift into a different appearance to do it. And maybe it would have been okay--well, not _okay_ , but you know what I mean--if it only happened once. But there were other times that came after it. Nothing as bad, I didn’t attack anyone else, but whenever I got angry and wanted to do something reckless I started always shifting into that same person. And after I almost lost my temper at work and was about to shift where a bunch of people would have noticed, I definitely felt like it was interfering with my daily life. That’s when you’re supposed to seek help, right? When your ability starts getting in the way of what’s normal for you?”

“That can sometimes be a good indicator, yes. And the fact that you took ownership of your ability and its negative effects on you is an important step.” Joan consults the file in her lap. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t have a prior history of mental illness, do you? I only ask because some abilities, or changes within abilities, can be exacerbated by preexisting conditions in atypicals.”

“No, not that I know of,” Erika replies. “They gave me a basic psych eval both times I came here, and no one’s brought up the possibility of anything. Do you think that’s what this is? That an undiagnosed mental illness is making my ability go haywire?”

“It’s possible,” says Joan. “But it’s also normal for people’s mental health to fluctuate, particularly during times of stress or major life changes. You’re twenty-two years old, still in the early phase of adulthood and starting to carve out your place in the world. Sometimes the changes that come with that can cause mental upheaval, which in turn affects your relationship with your ability.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that’s a little reassuring? Lucky me having to deal with an inconvenient superpower along with all of the usual adulting stuff, though.”

“Why do you say that it’s inconvenient?” asks Joan.

Erika gives a bitter laugh. “I mean, isn’t it obvious? Ever since my control started slipping, I’m always afraid that what happened at the bar is going to happen again. That I’m going to hurt more people because I know I can get away with it. I just wish I could go back to how things used to be, when I could use my ability without being afraid of myself.”

“You don’t have to be afraid, Erika,” Joan assures her. “And you’re not alone. Many other atypicals struggle with the ways that their abilities can be frightening for them. That’s one of the many things that the AM is for. We want to do everything we can to help you find a balance so that your ability doesn’t have to be inconvenient or scary for you.”

“Like by taking medication,” says Erika, bringing the conversation to the reason why both of them are here.

“Yes,” Joan replies. “Is medicating your ability and its effects something that you think will be helpful?”

“Maybe. I mean, it’s not something I’d considered until recently. I didn’t even know there were drugs to help atypicals until one of the doctors here said that there was a one in development that could regulate my ability. If you’d asked me a year ago, I’m not sure if I would have been interested, but after everything that’s happened… Well, it would be nice to take a pill or something and not have to worry about losing control. So I agreed to take part in the research, just to see if it leads to something that can help me. Even if it _does_ mean having a longer stay here.”

At least Joan can take comfort in the confirmation that Erika is indeed a voluntary participant. “Do you have any questions before you start the preliminary tests?” she asks. “I can’t answer all of the technical questions, but I might be able to address any general concerns you have.”

“No, I don’t think I have any questions. I’m just a little nervous, I guess.” Erika’s hands clench anxiously in her lap. “I know everything is probably perfectly safe, and they only have to list off the potential side effects for legal reasons, but it’s still scary stuff.”

“It’s understandable that you’re nervous,” says Joan. “And it’s true that drugs that regulate Class C powers like yours carry more risks because of the physical aspects of your ability. But I assure you that you’re in good hands. The doctors here will be ready to respond if anything goes wrong.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Erika replies. “And it’s nice to have someone to talk to before it all happens. Once I got moved into this program, I haven’t had as many of the usual counseling sessions like I did the first time I came here. So, um… Thank you, Dr. Bright. For being here to listen.”

“You’re welcome, Erika. That’s what I’m here for.” Her mention of a lack of structured counseling since the transfer to Tier 4 worries Joan, since the lower tiers make sure to provide frequent opportunities for both individual and group sessions depending on what best suits the atypical in question. She’s sure that higher-ups have their reasons for prioritizing certain things in the experimental trials, but the oversight stands out to her regardless. “Well, unless you have any more questions or concerns,” she says, “I think that’ll be all for now. I hope everything goes well for you.”

“Thanks. I hope so too.” Erika rises from the couch. She hesitates before adding, “If, um, if I have any other meetings like this while I”m here, I can make sure I get you as my psychologist again, right? It gets a little tiring telling different people about my ability every time, and it’s nice to have a kind of familiar face.”

“I can certainly pass that along,” says Joan. She stands up as well. “Until then, take care, Erika.”

She leaves the room soon after, rejoining Ellie where she has been observing the meeting through the two way mirror that is a fixture in most of the rooms in Tier 4. “Well, what did I tell you, Joan?” Ellie says to her. “You really _do_ have a way with making patients feel more at ease. Even if it’s just by giving them someone to talk to.”

“Why has she not been participating in regular counseling sessions since her transfer to Tier 4?” Joan asks. “Especially because her lapses in control seem to be closely tied to her emotional state. Giving her an outlet to talk through her emotions as well as helping her develop strategies for handling surges in anger should have remained a priority.”

“These experiments aren’t always about the subject’s feelings,” says Ellie as they leave the observation room. “The source of her loss of control isn’t important. Why would we devote time and resources to an issue that will ideally be solved by the drugs we’re developing?”

“Medication doesn’t always fix everything, Ellie,” Joan points out. She follows her down the hallway. “The drugs for Class C’s that you’ve been testing only inhibit the physical effects of abilities. The emotional responses that trigger her shapeshifting will still exist, and I think that’s something that needs to be addressed with her.”

“Your concern has been noted, Joan.” Ellie barely turns to look at her with her response. “And you’re very good at what you do, but you’re not the only professional here. Our focus in these experimental programs is the science. The results. We wouldn’t have gotten to this point if we hadn’t developed methods that work. And you need to trust those methods.”

“I do trust them. And I trust you. I just don’t want you to lose sight of the people in the name of results. They may be atypicals, but beyond their abilities they’re no different from you and me.”

This time, Ellie _does_ look at her. The hint of a smile curls up the side of her mouth, but the expression borders on pity, as if there is far more to the situation that Joan does not understand.

“If only it were that simple,” she says. With no follow-up to that statement, she adds, “I want you to observe the first round of tests. They’ll be starting in a couple of hours, and I’ll notify you of where to go. Be ready to take notes.”

“Of course, Director,” Joan says. “I’ll see you then.”

She gets the memo from Ellie to meet her at one of the examination rooms after her lunch break has concluded, and she subsequently settles herself in the observational space that allows her to see and hear what is happening in the room. Everything is proceeding according to routine, as far as she can tell, with the scientists and doctors monitoring Erika’s vitals as they meticulously test the precision and control of her ability. Joan takes diligent notes at each transformation that Erika makes, observing what comes easily to her and what gives her more difficulty. In a safe and secure setting, the amount of control that Erika exhibits seems normal for an atypical of her classification, but the scientists have not yet addressed how her ability works when her emotions are running high. Joan wonders how they will test how her ability manifests when she is angry or upset, since that state of mind cannot cannot necessarily be easily induced in a controlled setting.

The answer to that question comes when Ellie takes over, and it doesn’t take Joan long to realize that she does not like the solution.

She has rarely seen Ellie interact directly with atypicals, since most of her hands-on work only involves the interesting or exceptional cases in the higher tiers of the AM. There’s something inescapably cold and clinical in the way that Ellie looks at and addresses Erika, as if she is interacting with a lab sample or data point rather than a human being. Rather than poking and prodding her with instruments, Ellie uses her words to probe deeper into the details of Erika’s ability, and the confidence with which she speaks indicates that she knows exactly which tactics to employ.

“Don’t you want to show me what you can do?” Ellie says. “It makes you feel powerful, doesn’t it, when you can turn into someone else. When you know that you can do whatever you want without facing consequences, as long as you’re able to turn back into yourself later. Show me who you shift into when you’re so angry that you lose control of your ability.”

“I don’t think I can,” Erika replies. “It’s not like I can choose when it happens. I’ve tried to shift into that form when I’m not angry, but it’s never the same.”

“Of course you can.” Ellie takes a few steps closer to her. “Dig a little deeper. Think about how you feel when you become that person. Think about what you would do if you found out that someone was mistreating someone you care about. A friend, a family member, a significant other. You’d want to hurt the person who did that to them, wouldn’t you?”

“N-no.” A waver enters Erika’s voice as she shrinks back from Ellie’s approach. “Why would I want to think about something like that?”

“I’m only trying to get you into the right mindset,” says Ellie. “Imagine finding out that one of your loved ones is being harassed or abused in some way, and then you see the person who did that to them walking down the street. You know you could use your ability to get even without anyone knowing it was you. You’d really want to do it, wouldn’t you?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Erika insists. From her observational post, Joan sees the clench of her fists. “I don’t _like_ hurting people. That’s why I came here. I don’t want it to happen again.”

“Are you sure? They’ve done something _really_ awful, whoever this person is. Something unforgivable. You’d be letting down the person they hurt if you didn’t do something. Could you live with yourself, knowing that you could have done something to help them but were too cowardly to do it?”

“Stop it!” Erika’s fists clench tighter as she leaps to her feet. Ellie does not react to the sudden movement, nor to the warning beeps of the heart rate monitor that Erika is connected to. “I don’t want to lose control. I don’t want--”

She breaks off into a few shaky breaths. Joan stops the note that she has been making mid-thought, leaving the phrase “Patient displays signs of distress and” unfinished. Her pen slips out of her grip, but she does not bother to pick it up as it rolls to a stop on the table. Instead, she stares transfixed through the window of the two-way mirror, her mouth hanging open at the tactics that Ellie is employing.

“You need to,” Ellie tells Erika. “The person is standing right in front of you. You know that you can make them regret whatever they did. There won’t be any consequences, just your fist in their face after you turn yourself into someone else. If you don’t do it, who’s to say whether they’ll do it again? They’re just going to keep hurting people unless you _do something_.”

Erika lets out a yell of frustration. Joan observes the same body language that she had displayed during all of the other tests of her ability: a small flick of her wrist to prompt a shift in form. This time, she transforms into someone unrecognizable from her natural appearance, with the sharper features of prominent cheekbones, piercing eyes, and an aquiline nose. She draws back a clenched fist and aims it at Ellie, but before the blow can connect, Ellie reaches out with lightning-fast reflexes and closes her hand around Erika’s wrist in a preventative motion. Erika struggles against the unrelenting grip until her burst of fury fades and she reverts to her previous appearance. Her eyes are wide and terrified as if she has only just realized that she had lost control, and she remains unmoving even after Ellie lets go of her wrist and steps away from her.

“I--I almost hit you,” Erika says in horror. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“You did well,” Ellie replies. “That was exactly what I wanted to see from you. You were even able to shift back fairly quickly even after losing control. This data will be _very_ useful as we move forward.”

Erika sinks down to sit in her chair once more. The agitated beeps on the heart rate monitor gradually slow down as the physical manifestation of her emotional upheaval steadies into a more normal range. “I--I guess that’s good,” she says, although she does not sound convinced. “Can we take a break from having me use my power for a little while? It takes a lot out of me to use it so often like this.”

“Get a drink of water and take a few breaths.” Ellie sounds strangely charitable for someone who has so recently pushed a patient to the limits of her ability. “We still have much to do.”

Throughout the rest of the tests, Erika still appears shaken, and Joan does not blame her. She herself struggles to keep her observations as objective as possible as she writes down a few more notes about what has transpired. Her thoughts keep returning to how Ellie had not softened her tactics despite Erika’s clear signs of distress, and the methodology leaves her conflicted. It had certainly been effective in provoking the loss of control for observational purposes, but when an ability is so intrinsically tied to an atypical’s emotional state, more care should be taken to ensure the patient’s comfort whenever possible. Joan is not so idealistic to believe that treatment will always be sunshine and rainbows for the patient, and she knows that sometimes the patient has to feel worse in order to improve, but surely there must be a middle ground between the extremes.

After the tests have concluded, Ellie rejoins her in the observation room. “Did you get all of that, Joan?” she asks.

“Yes,” Joan replies. The desire to question her methods burns within her, but calling her out with knee-jerk words will not serve her well. “I’m… I’m glad that you seem to have gathered some good data.”

“I always do. Class C abilities can be tricky in their variation, but many of her physical and psychological responses closely match the results we’ve gotten from similar classifications. I’m confident that the drug that we’ve been developing to inhibit invisibility may have a positive effect on her as well. With a few modifications, of course.”

“That’s, um, that’s good news,” Joan says. In most other situations she would both envy and admire Ellie’s confidence, but recent events now leave her uncertain.

“What is it, Joan?” Ellie inquires as she gathers up her notes. “You look concerned.”

“It’s nothing,” she replies. “I should let you get back to work. I’ll stop by your office later?”

“Come at around four,” says Ellie. “I should be available by then.”

Joan leaves the observation room and returns to her desk, where she spends the next hour typing up her notes and adding them to her growing collection of files pertaining to the Tier 4 experimental trials. In the back of her mind, she rehearses how to delicately broach the topic of her concerns to Ellie. She does not want to sound too accusatory, but she cannot deny that there is at least some degree of ethical breach in how Ellie manipulates the patients’ emotions to get the results she wants. It will be best to approach the topic like any of the casual scientific debates they’ve had, in which she is careful to treat Ellie and her opinions with the respect that she has always held for her. Maybe there is a deeper reason behind why Ellie runs the experiments the way she does, or perhaps the methods are already well-established and outside of her jurisdiction. Whatever the answer is, Joan is sure that Ellie will have an explanation for her actions.

She enters Ellie’s office a little after four o’clock at the invitation to come in. “What can I do for you, Joan?” Ellie asks after Joan has closed the door behind her. “If this is about making plans for this weekend, I’m leaving for D.C. on Thursday and won’t be back until next Tuesday night, so we might have to hold off for a while.”

“No, I’m not here about that. But that’s good to know.” Joan clears her throat, preparing herself for what she wants to say next. “I want to talk to you about… about what happened today.”

Ellie raises her eyebrows. “What happened today?” she repeats. “My, that sounds dramatic. From where I’m standing, all that happened today was a series of very informative tests. If you have any questions about the methodology, there’s probably a better way to phrase that.”

“You specifically provoked Erika into losing control,” says Joan, disregarding her previous intention of easing into the topic. “I know you needed to observe how her ability works when she’s not in control, but there had to be another way to monitor that without causing her any emotional distress.”

“Do you have any better ideas, Joan?” Ellie asks. “Because that’s the only reason I can think of to question methods that, for all intents and purposes, work. Treating atypicals with kid gloves isn’t going to give us the results we need.”

“Yes, but there’s a difference between kid gloves and borderline mistreatment,” Joan replies. “Maybe I don’t have a better way, but surely you understand that the patients here should be treated with respect. And if the other tests and experiments in Tier 4 are anything like what I just witnessed, I’d wager that the well-being of the patients isn’t always a priority for you. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

“This isn’t a standard two-week pleasure cruise in Tier 1,” Ellie points out. “The subject has a history of using her ability to commit acts of unprovoked violence--for heroic reasons, if her account of the incident at the bar is to be believed, but unprovoked all the same--without repercussions. If she just kept using her ability privately to make minor cosmetic changes to herself, that would have been fine. There’s no danger to the general population as long as she doesn’t make a public show of it. But do you not see why someone like that is seen as a higher risk? Why I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that she isn’t let out on the streets again until I know that she isn’t going to go on a spree of using this alter-ego that she’s created for more violence?”

Joan cannot argue those points, because she understands the concern about atypicals who have used their abilities to skirt around laws and legal repercussions. “But if there was a different way to accomplish that,” she says, “you would do it, right?”

Ellie hesitates. Uncertainty of any kind is unusual from her, and so Joan suspects that her brief silence is more of a calculation than anything else as she plans her next words. “Of course,” she finally replies. “I know my methods may seem harsh, but I promise you that I don’t always enjoy using them. But until we find that elusive ‘better way,’ I have to do whatever works.”

Her response is not entirely comforting, especially the implication of the words “don’t always enjoy,” as if there are occasional instances when she _does_ take pleasure in the more unpleasant aspects of her work. After having spent so long believing every word that comes out of Ellie’s mouth, Joan hates this influx of doubt that has overcome her. Even when the two of them have disagreed on prior occasions, she has never felt so at odds with her, no matter how much she tries to convince herself that she is overreacting and Ellie is merely working with the framework that has preceded her.

“Are you upset with me, Joan?” Ellie asks, breaking the silence that has fallen between them.

“No,” she says, because the foremost emotion that she is experiencing cannot be summed up in a single word like “upset.”

“And you still trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes. Of course I do.” The reply comes out like a reflex despite her conflicted thoughts. “I always have.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about.” Ellie stands up and walks around the front of her desk. She touches a hand to Joan’s cheek when she rises to her feet to meet her. “I care about you, Joan, and you know that I always value your insights. But there’s no room for doubt if you want to continue to stand by me. If you care about me too, you should stop worrying and keep being the valuable part of this organization that you are. Okay?”

A quiet warning bell resounds in the back of Joan’s mind, reminding her that there should be nothing negatively conditional about any aspect of a relationship. The thought vanishes as quickly as it comes, however, and the brush of Ellie’s thumb against her cheek and the sincerity in her eyes reassures her that her feelings are genuine.

“Okay,” she agrees.

“Good.” In the privacy of the closed doors of the office, Ellie leans in to kiss her. “You did well today, Joan, all things considered,” she says after she has pulled away. “I know that you’re going to continue to do great things for us. This is only the beginning.”

She kisses her again, and as much as Joan wants to lose herself in the touch of their lips, her doubts do not yet fade away.


	6. Chapter 6

As Joan spends more time working with the patients in Tier 4, she expects to become more comfortable with the nature of the experiments, but despite Ellie’s assurances she cannot shake the sense that some of the AM’s programs are not as benevolent as they seem. She soon starts to see the patterns in her patients, discovering that many of them have risked hurting others, exposing their abilities to the public, or both prior to coming to the AM. Joan is usually hesitant to describe atypicals as “dangerous,” but when she hears her colleagues use the word again and again she begins to understand why that descriptor is necessary for those who have used their abilities in less than upstanding ways. Rumors travel quickly in Tier 4 as well, and so it doesn’t take long for her to hear about non-consensual experiments and invasive medical procedures. She’s not sure if Ellie is trying to protect her or keep her ignorant by not assigning her to the patients that face those particular extremes, but either way she cannot deny that Tier 4 is not what she has expected.

Despite her qualms, Joan’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge is insatiable, and so when she is not working with her patients she dives deeper into the archives of research files that she can access with her security clearance. It is here, when she is investigating more about the nebulous category of Class E atypicals after having a session with one, that she finds frequent references to Tier 5. The question of “What could possibly require higher secrecy than Tier 4?” is soon answered as she puts together the piecemeal details that she can dredge up. Tier 5 is almost entirely comprised of Class E atypicals, and unlike the Tier 4 patients who are eventually released after a set period of time, those in Tier 5 are kept in an indefinite state of quarantine because of the danger that they pose to society. Part of Joan knows that she is probably better off not knowing the exact nature of what the Tier 5 patients face, but the other part of her insists upon knowing exactly what she has gotten herself into as Ellie entrusts her with more power and responsibilities.

Which is how, on one particular night when she is working well past the regular operating hours of the facility, she ends up sneaking into Tier 5.

Finding the high-security area is not a problem. A few innocent queries (mostly to Agent Green, who she knows will tell her anything even though she does not enjoy exploiting his clear unrequited affection for her) reveal that Tier 5 is located in the sub-basement of the building. _Entering_ the area, however, is an entirely different matter. Joan’s keycard can get her into the sub-basement, where she has been on a few prior occasions to obtain files from the high-security archives, but she will undoubtedly have to dodge her way past additional security to gain access to Tier 5 itself.

“Can I help you?” asks the on-duty security guard as she approaches the entrance to Tier 5.

“Um, yes,” she replies, giving the excuse that she has prepared in the likely case of having to explain herself. “My name is Dr. Bright. I need to access some of the Tier 5 research data for a project I’m working on.”

“Can I see some identification?” The guard frowns when she shows her ID badge to him. “I’m sorry, but you don’t have the security clearance to enter Tier 5. I can’t let you through.”

Joan has anticipated this roadblock, and so she presses forward into the dangerous gamble of outright lies. “I’m working with Director Wadsworth,” she says. “She gave me her permission. She said she’d get the information for me herself, but she’s extremely busy right now and doesn’t have time to leave her office.”

The guard regards her with narrowed eyes of skepticism. “I’ll have to call up to her to confirm.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” she says. “I have her security code. She told me it would be enough to authorize me. Nine-S-four-D-two-X-nine-four-I-zero.”

She repeats the alphanumeric sequence with confidence as the guard enters it into the computer near his post. Spending the past two years in Ellie’s close company has its benefits, namely in how she has been able to overhear various pieces of security information when Ellie doesn’t realize that she is listening. Upon becoming more curious about Tier 5, Joan has been sure to discreetly learn and memorize Ellie’s security code on the off chance that she may need it for something like this.

“That checks out,” the guard confirms with the positive chime of the computer. “Sorry for the hold-up, Dr. Bright.”

He opens the door, and with a brief word of thanks to him Joan passes through the doorway to enter Tier 5. The sight of uninviting concrete walls and harsh fluorescent lighting meets her as she walks through the hall. Most of the AM’s decor contains a certain amount of clinicalness, but the scenery within Tier 5 makes no effort to appear comforting or appealing. A sense of unease fills her as she walks with quiet steps to venture further into the restricted area, past the archives where the guard expects her to go. She is not sure what she is looking for, whether there would be something as obvious as a secret lab or holding cells, but she figures that no section of the basement should be left unexplored if she wants any answers.

She opens another door and finds herself in a space that certainly _feels_ like a prison, with rooms lined up like cells on either side of her with no windows beyond a small pane of glass on each door. Her heart sinks at how her fears about Tier 5 have been correct: that there are indeed atypicals being held like criminals here, buried in the bowels of the building and having not seen daylight in God knows how long. And worst of all, Ellie has been _perpetuating_ these inhumane conditions. Despite everything Joan wants to believe about her, she is certain that no one interested in promoting positive change and better methods would allow something like this to exist beneath the organization’s feet. The revelation of that Ellie has kept this terrible secret from her sends her reeling, making her question everything that she thought she knew about her work.

Joan knows that she should heed the sick feeling in her stomach and turn around, but her steps carry her forward with morbid curiosity. Maybe she is jumping to conclusions, she thinks in a final ill-conceived attempt to rationalize what she has stumbled upon. Perhaps the cells are empty, only used for worst-case scenarios. She peers through the tiny window on the cell door closest to her, hoping with every fiber of her being that she will not see anyone inside.

The sight that awaits her is worse than anything she could have imagined.

It’s not the conditions inside the cell that make her legs threaten to buckle beneath her, but rather the person whom she sees through the glass. At first she does not recognize him, but a second later she realizes that her own brother is on the other side of the door. He looks terrible, his face pale and gaunt and his eyes devoid of their usual sparkle and joy, but he is still undeniably Mark, finally found after being missing for so long. He has been right below her this entire time, scared and alone, and she has been so blind to what he has undoubtedly endured. To think that Ellie has--and her thoughts stop there as the reality of the situation hits her with full force. This is _Ellie’s_ doing, because she cannot be in charge of this entire facility and _not_ know that Mark has ended up here in this desolate cell. All those times that Joan has expressed her worries to her since he went missing, and she has been keeping him locked up as a prisoner, fooling Joan into thinking that she is someone she can trust, someone who _cares_ about her. She has never felt so betrayed in her life, and the pain stabs her through her heart like a dagger as her image of Ellie shatters into broken glass.

Mark looks up from where he has been sitting on the flimsy cot that serves as a bed inside the cell. He meets her eyes through the small pane of glass, and his expression shifts in a double-take of shock. He rises from the bed, crossing the length of the cell until he stands close enough for her to touch him were it not for the door separating them. She can barely hear his voice, but she sees the shape that his mouth makes as he utters the two incredulous syllables of “Joanie?”

“Yes, Mark, it’s me,” she says, even though she doubts he can hear her. “I’m going to get you out of here. I--”

She’s not sure if it’s the sound of her voice or the grip of her hand against the door’s handle that triggers the alarm, but its blare immediately confirms that someone has discovered her presence. Hurried footsteps echo through the hall as Joan throws open the door to the cell and stands face-to-face with Mark. Before she can step forward to embrace him, two pairs of hands grab her roughly and pull her away from the door. Everything blurs as they escort her away, ignoring her struggles against their grip and her desperate cries of Mark’s name. None of it feels real, and maybe she will soon wake up and realize that the past few minutes have only been a terrible nightmare.

She does not wake, however, and the last thing she sees as the guards take her away is the wide-eyed confusion and terror upon Mark’s face before the cell door slams shut and he is gone.

 

* * *

 

Joan doesn’t cling to the hope that she has much of a future at the AM after that night.

Between the night that she is forced to spend at the facilities after being dragged out of Tier 5 (as if she is a criminal that the AM cannot allow to walk free) and the disciplinary hearing that she attends in the aftermath, she is not surprised when she is fired from her position. She does not try to deny her actions or fight the decision. As far as she is concerned, she is _done_ with the AM after learning that they have been using her brother in their experiments without her knowledge. But it turns out that they do not intend to lock her up nor cut her loose entirely, because by the end of her hearing she has negotiated a deal with them: they will let her work privately with atypicals outside the AM with quarterly check-ins by AM agents, and Mark will be released into her custody after his current round of experimental trials has concluded. She’s not sure _why_ she agrees to these terms, other than the fear of further punishment if she does not comply, but ultimately she cannot refuse a solution that lets Mark walk free. Besides, there’s something to be said about the job security that the offer gives her. She doubts that being fired from her previous position after breaching a high-security area will look good on any future job application.

She sees Ellie during the proceedings, of course, but they do not have any opportunities to speak privately. Instead Joan has to sit across from her and look her in the eye knowing that she has kept so many atrocities from her, and in return Ellie regards her with an unmistakable sense of disappointment. It’s all Joan can do to not lash out at her when she is allowed to speak, because she wants to scream at her about how betrayed she feels at how everything they have shared has been nothing but a ploy to keep Mark into the AM’s clutches. She does not dare express the full extent of her emotions, however, and by the time her fate is sealed she is exhausted from the weight of everything that has happened over the past few days.

She is given the mercy of cleaning out her desk outside of the AM’s regular hours of operation, saving her from the walk of shame out of the building when everyone will see her as the doctor who has broken the rules so spectacularly. A security guard stands watch as she packs up her personal belongings into the box that she has been given. She knows that the guard’s presence is standard protocol, but after her recent actions she’s sure that the AM views her as a bigger security risk than most ordinary terminated employees.

Her intention is to pack up everything as quickly as possible and leave this place far behind, but the sound of a familiar voice speaking to the guard makes her stiffen as she places a container of desk supplies into the box. Of _course_ Ellie would not let her walk out of the building without speaking to her one-on-one, Joan thinks bitterly. She would never be able to resist getting a final word in and telling Joan just how big of a mistake she has made.

“I need to speak to Dr. Bright alone,” Ellie says to the guard. “Leave us for a few minutes, will you? I’ll make sure she doesn’t try anything.”

“Of course, Director,” the guard replies.

Joan does not acknowledge her when she approaches her desk. It’s not until Ellie clears her throat to announce her presence that she makes the mistake of raising her gaze to look at her. Every complicated emotion that she has experienced since walking into Tier 5 rushes through her, and she’s not sure whether she wants to punch her, scream at her, or break down into tears.

“Well, Joan,” Ellie begins. “You’ve certainly made a mess of things, haven’t you?”

Joan crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Are you here to gloat?” she asks. “To tell me how I should have known better than to poke around in places where I wasn’t allowed, because God forbid--”

“You knew that you didn’t have access to Tier 5 and it was quarantined for a reason--”

“--because God forbid I find out that you’ve been keeping my brother as your prisoner this whole time,” she continues on, ignoring Ellie’s interruption. “What did you think was going to happen? Did you think we could just carry on the way we were without me ever finding out where Mark was? Or what you _did_ to him?”

“It had been over two years since his disappearance,” Ellie points out. “It wasn’t like you were doing much to look for him anymore. Ideally, yes, you would have never known.”

“I only wasn’t doing anything because I was out of ideas. Because _you_ kept telling me that everything would be fine and that I should stop worrying. But you _knew_ , you _knew_ where he was the whole fucking time and you never said _anything._  You looked me in the eye, and you lied to me. You fooled me into thinking that you _ever_ cared about me.” Joan lowers the accusatory finger that she has pointed at Ellie and makes a conscious effort to relax the tension in her hands. “I should have seen you for who you really are from the moment I saw the way that you treat some of the patients in Tier 4.”

“Oh, please. You knew that the work wasn’t always going to be pleasant. You knew that we have some atypicals here who can’t be helped by simply talking about their feelings and learning how to cope with their abilities. Sometimes harsher measures are necessary for the sake of progress.”

“Yes, but Mark _isn’t_ one of those atypicals. You took an innocent man and you locked him up for _years_. You can’t justify that, no matter how much you try to hide behind the idea of progress.”

Ellie laughs. “Oh, if only you knew some of the things that Mark is capable of. You’d change your tune pretty fast.”

“He’s my brother,” Joan retorts. “I know him better than you ever will.”

“I’m not here to argue with you, Joan.” Ellie perches herself on an empty corner of the desk. “God knows you’ve royally fucked things up. There’s no debating that. I just wanted a chance to talk to you alone without all of the bureaucracy in the way.”

Joan resumes her task of packing up her remaining belongings. “So talk,” she says, determinedly keeping her eyes away from Ellie--a tall order when she is right _there_ , her hand resting on the surface of the desk as if she demands Joan’s attention.

“I have to say, that was some shrewd negotiation you did to convince us to release Mark to you,” says Ellie. “Of course, that part wasn’t _entirely_ your idea. When Green suggested the proposal to me, he said that we were going to have to give you something you wanted in order to prevent you for reporting us for what you found in Tier 5. If it were completely up to me, things would have gone a lot differently, but his ideas _do_ have merit to them sometimes.”

“The offer was Agent Green’s idea?” Against her better judgment, Joan looks up to acknowledge her. “That’s… surprising.”

“Yes, well, it looks like the soft spot he has for you has paid off. You get to walk out of here a free woman, start your own practice and work with patients the way you’ve always wanted to, and in a couple of weeks you’ll have your brother back. It’s a pretty lenient deal, considering what you’ve done.”

“Can you really call it freedom?” Joan asks. “I might not be locked up, but you still have me leashed.”

“You’re still a valuable asset to us, Joan,” says Ellie. “You’re an extremely specialized professional, and not many people can do what you do. It would be an enormous mistake to turn you loose and not have ways to keep track of what you’ve been doing. Call it a leash if you want, but I see it as a necessary measure and maybe even a mutual benefit.”

Joan scoffs. The disparaging sound conceals the deep ache in her chest at Ellie’s choice of words. “Is that all I ever was to you? A ‘valuable asset’? Was everything else a lie?”

Something shifts in Ellie’s expression, and if Joan didn’t know better, she would think that she is showing regret. “Of course not. I _do_ care about you, Joan. You were supposed to be right up here with me, and we’d be running this place together. We would have been unstoppable. But now…” She shakes her head in her disappointment. “Such a waste. You were a fool to throw all of that away.”

“I’d rather be a fool than a monster.”

“Do you really think that’s what I am?” Ellie asks. “A monster?”

“I…” Joan looks her in the eye and sees the woman whom she has admired for so long, and yet her view of her has changed so irrevocably that she is no longer dazzled by the facade that Ellie presents to her. “I know I can’t forgive you for what you’ve done. I don’t care if what you did to Mark was for the sake of progress, or that you never intended for me to find out. You still hurt me despite everything between us, and that’s unforgivable.”

Ellie exhales a quiet breath as she stands up from her perch on Joan’s desk. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Joan,” she says. She takes a few steps closer to her. “I hope someday you’ll change your mind.”

She reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder. Joan pushes her touch away with instinctive fury, hating how blind she has been over the past few years. The hatred finds a home within her chest as it swells larger and spirals downward to consume her. Some of it is directed at Ellie, but the rest is aimed inward at herself for making the mistake of trusting her so completely.

“I _will_ take you down one day, Wadsworth,” she declares. “And you won’t see it coming.”

Ellie chuckles with patronizing humor. “Oh, you can certainly try. But until then…” She steps back from Joan’s desk. “I truly do wish you the best.”

Joan does not dignify the platitude with a response, as much as she wants to utter the angry retort of _Fuck you_. Instead she offers nothing but a continued steely gaze as Ellie walks away from her. It’s not the way she wants to leave things, especially when the AM intends to keep her in their shadow, but at least she can take comfort in the victory that Mark will soon be safe from this terrible place.

That victory never comes, however, and when she receives word that a failed time travel experiment has left Mark’s mind trapped in the past with the AM needing to keep his comatose body in their care, Joan knows that she has been a fool to think that Mark would ever be free.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pieces of dialogue in this chapter are adapted from Episode 25 (aka the episode that made me immediately ship Joan/Ellie from the moment that I first listened to it).

Two years with no contact from Wadsworth have not been long enough.

Joan isn’t surprised when she gets a call from the AM a few days after her failed attempt to rescue Mark (and not a second goes by when she doesn’t feel the fury and heartbreak of how badly that turned out, the promise of finally seeing her brother again snatched away when Damien disappeared into the night with him). The AM isn’t stupid, after all, and she knows it hasn’t been hard for them to follow the trail from Damien to her. What she _doesn’t_ expect is to get scheduled for a meeting with Wadsworth on that upcoming Friday. It’s almost an insult, and maybe if circumstances weren’t so dire Joan would refuse. She has no choice but to cooperate, however, and now she must face the event on her calendar that silently mocks her with the reminder that she has been a fool to think that she can maintain a healthy distance from her.

The main building of the AM’s facilities is as familiar as ever when Joan arrives and checks in at the main reception desk. It feels like a homecoming of sorts when she walks through the halls that had once been filled with wonder and possibilities. How things have changed, now that the rose-colored glasses have fallen away to reveal that even the best of intentions have a dark side lurking behind them.

Wadsworth occupies the same office as she did previously, but the nameplate outside the door now reads “Senior Director.” Joan suspects the new title is merely a semantic difference, considering how much authority she had as the associate director. Her success in essentially having this entire division of the AM under her thumb before hitting forty _would_ be impressive, if Joan didn’t hate her so much for it.

She raises a fist and knocks on the door. “Come in,” comes the sound of Wadsworth’s response.

She opens the door and steps into the office. Against her better judgment, her eyes immediately go to Wadsworth, not taking the time to get her bearings before diving in. All of Joan’s old feelings come rushing back at the sight of her, as if their two years apart have never happened. She can try to hide from these emotions as much as she wants, but nothing can stop the flood that comes with facing the woman who had once meant everything to her.

“Sit down, Joan,” Wadsworth says, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk. Joan does not move, lingering in the doorway in petty defiance of the invitation. Wadsworth gives a quiet sigh of exasperation and continues with, “Please, Joan, we might be here for a while. Lots to discuss.”

Joan closes the door behind her and obeys the request. She sits stiffly in the offered chair with her hands folded in her lap. She hopes that Wadsworth does not notice how tightly her fingers clench against each other, but _nothing_ gets past Wadsworth. Which, she supposes, is why she is here today, facing the AM for the first time beyond the minor nuisance of her mandated quarterly meetings with Green.

The meeting proceeds to business matters with minimal small-talk, and it doesn’t take long for Wadsworth to bring up the raw wound of Mark and Damien. She knows exactly what to say to get under Joan’s skin, poking and prodding at sensitive topics with expert precision. Despite her persuasive words of “I want you back here working for me, working _with_ me, just like before” and “You and I could be running headquarters in ten years or less,” none of it is enough to change Joan’s mind. She is not that person anymore, and the only path her ambitions take her is toward reuniting with Mark. The AM, no matter how much Wadsworth tries to spin her words, will not bring her to that goal, especially when they remain as in the dark as she is about Mark’s current location.

“I’m not going to report you.” Wadsworth says, an empty comfort in the wake of the heated words exchanged between them. “I really don’t need to give the higher-ups more reason for disappointment. So I’ll handle you myself.” She maintains a steady gaze upon her, dark eyes meeting dark eyes across her desk. “You’re going to come here twice a month and talk to me. Just like the old days.”

 _Nothing like the old days_ , Joan wants to spit back, because she knows how loaded that phrase is. Instead she settles for the biting retort of “Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because I said so.” Wadsworth smirks with the self-satisfaction of her authority. “And because I think it would be an informative exercise for both of us. I don’t think you should be left to your own devices--look at where it’s gotten you. For the sake of your patients, and for the sake of your own safety, I think it’s best for me to keep a watchful eye.” She leans forward in her chair with her hands clasped together on the surface of her desk. “So. What day two weeks from now works for you?”

It would be so easy for Joan to refuse to give Wadsworth any more of her time, but defying her is ultimately a futile effort. This is what Wadsworth _does_ , pretending like she’s doing her a favor by scheduling disciplinary meetings rather than exposing her misdeeds to higher authorities. But these meetings aren’t freedom or mercy, and instead they are Wadsworth’s excuse to draw her back into her world.

“This same time on Fridays will be fine,” Joan replies, not letting any warmth seep into her voice.

“Excellent. And try to leave the frigidness at home next time, will you, Joan? It won’t do us much good.” Wadsworth rises from her chair and walks around to the front of her desk. “Well, I won’t keep you for any longer. I’m sure you have a lot of _very_ important things to get back to. Patients to see, research to do, brothers to find… God forbid I get in the way of any of that.”

She walks toward the door and opens it as if showing her out. As Joan passes by her and offers her a steely glare, Wadsworth grabs her arm to stop her. Her touch is not rough or demanding, but it halts Joan’s steps regardless.

“We could have really been something, Joan,” she says. “Think about what you’re giving up.”

There’s something almost genuine in her gaze, but Joan refuses to fall for it. “Let go of me, Ellie,” she replies, slipping into the more familiar form of address that she has already fallen into once during this meeting.

Wadsworth relinquishes her grip, although she does not break the eye contact between them. Joan hates how she continues to be pulled into her like an object being sucked into a black hole. The magnetic force is too strong for her to resist, and a trace of her old attraction resurfaces in the gaze between them.

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” is all Wadsworth says. “Have a fantastic afternoon.”

Joan closes the door behind her with no further comments. Upon her return to the parking lot, she starts her car but then immediately turns off the engine with a deep sigh. She rests her forehead on her hands at the top of the steering wheel, determined to keep herself together in the face of defeat. She had hoped that this meeting would bring her closer to locating Mark, but if not even the AM knows where he is, then she is truly out of options. Her mind drifts back to Wadsworth’s request for her to return to the AM’s direct employment. Perhaps the offer would have more appeal if she could use their resources to find Mark, but Wadsworth is clearly not interested in helping her achieve that goal. Instead, these meeting are nothing more than a power play on Wadsworth’s part, a reminder that Joan will never be free of the shadow that she has cast over her life.

Joan lifts her head and checks her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Much to her relief, her outward appearance does not betray any of the crumbling emotions within her. She does not want to look too rattled upon her return to her office, even if she does not have any patients scheduled for the remainder of the afternoon. Nobody can know how deeply Wadsworth has affected her during one brief meeting.

She restarts her car, and the drive back to her office passes by in a blur. Once she is safely shut away behind closed doors, she opens the cabinet that contains the bottle of scotch that she keeps hidden away. She had purchased the bottle not long after the start of her sessions with Damien, because she’d needed _something_ to take the edge off the frustration and embarrassment that comes with being subjected to his ability. The bottle has sat untouched for the past few months while she has immersed herself in her plan to rescue Mark, but between the events of last weekend and today’s meeting with Wadsworth she has more than enough reason to reopen it.

She pours herself a few swallows of the amber liquid and drinks. The rich, smoky taste fills her mouth, and she sets the glass on her desk with a heavy exhale. For a brief glimmer of a moment she considers calling Sam, because as strange as it sounds Sam is the closest person she has to a friend nowadays. Although the therapist side of Joan knows that sharing her thoughts with an understanding friend is a valid course of action in this situation, there’s something vaguely inappropriate in venting to a former patient about her ex ( _can_ she call Wadsworth that when they never defined what existed between them?), especially when that ex happens to be responsible for the majority of Mark’s trauma. Sam has dealt with enough lately, and the last thing she needs is to be pulled into another round of Joan’s personal drama after last weekend’s disaster.

With a certain degree of reluctance, Joan enters the date and time of her next meeting with Wadsworth into her calendar. Two weeks, she thinks as she takes another drink from her glass. She has two weeks to plan her next course of action, and the length of time seems both too long and too short. With every passing moment Mark slips further away from her grasp, and this time she refuses to let Wadsworth distract her from the importance of her brother’s safety.

She will set up her pieces on the metaphorical game board against Wadsworth, playing to protect her family and her patients, and by the time she enters Wadsworth’s office again, she will be ready to strike back.

 

* * *

 

“It’s nice to see you again, Joan,” Wadsworth says two weeks later when Joan has returned to her office. “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you back here again after how our last meeting went.”

“It’s a disciplinary meeting,” Joan replies, not bothering with the pretense of civility. “I don’t have much choice in the matter, do I?”

“Oh, there’s always a choice. Of course, I know where you work and where you live, so if you _did_ choose not to show up it wouldn’t be hard for me to track you down.”

“You’re as charming as ever, Wadsworth,” Joan says dryly.

A twitch of a smile plays at Wadsworth’s lips at the sarcastic mockery of a compliment. “One of us has to be,” she replies. “But I intend to take these meetings _very_ seriously, and so should you. It’s the only way we can move beyond all of that messy business earlier this month. So, let’s begin.” She keeps her gaze firmly upon her. “How are you today, Joan?”

“Fine,” she responds stiffly.

“I assume your work is going well? How are your patients? You haven’t had any more of them throwing a wrench into meticulously planned operations, I hope?”

Joan’s fists tighten in her lap, her fingers digging into her palms. She relaxes them in a slow, conscious motion, refusing to give Wadsworth the satisfaction of rattling her by indirectly mentioning Damien. The clock ticks mockingly on the wall with each second that passes without her response. Wadsworth’s face does not betray any hint of impatience or frustration, but Joan knows that her refusal to respond must be driving her crazy.

“You know, Joan, the purpose of these meetings is for you to actually talk,” Wadsworth says as the clock’s ticking grows to a crescendo between them. When Joan merely crosses her arms in front of her in a wordless statement of defiance, Wadsworth’s quiet sigh betrays her exasperation. “Really? You’re just going to sit there in silence? Isn’t that a little bit immature of you, Joan?”

“What was your meeting with the joint chiefs about?” Joan asks, referring to the important government business that Wadsworth had been attending to before receiving the news of the break-in. Even when the two of them had been at their closest, she was never fully aware of the nature of Wadsworth’s work with the U.S. government beyond the nebulous goals of furthering research about atypicals and developing practical applications for various abilities. If Wadsworth intends to fill these meetings with inane questions, she might as well try to seek some answers of her own.

For the first time since Joan has walked into this office, she sees true irritation upon Wadsworth’s face in the curl of her upper lip and the narrowing of her eyes. “Fine,” Wadsworth says. She gestures toward the door. “I’ll see you in two weeks.”

The invitation to leave should be a victory, and Joan has not expected it to be this easy to get under Wadsworth’s skin. Walking away now would be a waste, however, especially when she has not yet received any information about what she truly wants to know.

“Well?” Wadsworth prompts her. “You’re free to leave. Isn’t that what you want? To not have to endure these _terrible_ meetings with me?”

“I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of watching me walk away,” Joan replies. “If you’re going to insist on having these meetings, you don’t get to kick me out the moment I say something that you don’t like.”

Wadsworth gives a disparaging laugh. “Doing things out of spite is _not_ a good look on you, Joan.”

“And supervillainy isn’t a good look on you, but here we are.”

Wadsworth sighs. “I know it must feel good for you to paint yourself as the hero. But you of all people should know that the world isn’t always black and white. There’s always room for nuance. And _I_ haven’t organized a break-in that requires the abilities of my own patients. You can’t say the same, can you?”

“I’m not here to listen to you lecture me about morality,” says Joan. “You’re not exactly a paragon of virtue yourself.”

“So what _are_ you here for?” asks Wadsworth, ignoring the jab at her lack of morals.

Joan raises her eyebrows at the deceptive simplicity of the question. “I’m… sorry?”

“Why are you here?” Wadsworth repeats. “Spite can only carry you so far, and if you wanted to know whether I’ve tracked down our favorite fugitives, you would have asked that outright. So I can only assume that you have an ulterior motive for not walking out that door the second you had my invitation to do so.” She then laughs. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me it’s because of the way you _feel_ about me. You just can’t stand to walk away from me now that I’m back in your life, is that it?”

“You’re severely overestimating the extent of your influence over me,” Joan replies, as if Wadsworth hasn’t been a lingering thought in the back of her mind over the past two weeks. “And I’m surprised it took you this long to pull out _that_ particular piece of leverage.”

“I wanted to keep things professional. You know, I’m going to have to cut out this part of the recording if it needs to reach any ears besides mine. Our… let’s call it ‘affair’ was never public knowledge, and I intend to keep it that way.”

“You were the one who brought it up,” Joan points out. She is not surprised that their conversations are being recorded, because of _course_ Wadsworth wants evidence to use against her if necessary. She would do the same thing if Wadsworth were in her territory. “And there’s nothing ‘professional’ about a boss sleeping with her subordinate.”

“Oh, don’t act all high and mighty about it, Joan. You were just as into it as I was.” Wadsworth rises from her chair and walks around to the front of her desk. She leans casually against it, and Joan’s eyes are drawn to the splay of her fingers across the desk’s surface. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten. For all of your uncooperativeness, you still remember how good it was between us.”

“Memories can have a certain rose-colored tint to them,” says Joan. “You’ll have to forgive me for not looking back at those days with the same fondness that you do.”

“So dramatic. Surely not _everything_ has been tainted.” Wadsworth steps closer to her. Her hand slides off the desk with her movement. “Hell, you’re a therapist. You should know all about viewing things objectively. You should be able to separate all of the good times we had from the… _unpleasantness_ of my work.”

“That’s not how a healthy relationship works,” Joan retorts. “I can’t only remember the good parts and throw the rest away. Not after what you did.”

Wadsworth grips her hands around the arms of Joan’s chair and leans forward. “Oh, really? Then why are you looking at me like you can’t wait to kiss me?”

“That’s…” Joan huffs out a breath, unable to deny how her eyes are drawn to her lips. “I’m not sure if I want to kiss you or wring your neck, but I promise you neither one is out of any kind of affection.”

“Wring my neck? Now _that’s_ a new one.” Wadsworth laughs. “I’m starting to like this different side of you, Joan. You’ve got a little more bite to you.”

She stands close enough that Joan can smell the familiar scent of her perfume, and the fragrance takes her back to a simpler time when she could look at her and not feel the burn of hatred. She wants to tell Wadsworth to step away, but the words do not come. Instead there is only the rush of old attraction that she cannot shake no matter how badly she wants it to fade.

Their lips meet in a mutual motion. Joan knows from the moment that she feels Wadsworth’s mouth against hers that she has made a terrible decision, but part of her hopes that kissing her will be worse than she remembers, thus justifying her continued hatred of her. The tension between them only makes the kiss _better_ , however, and soon Joan is on her feet with her arms wrapped tightly around Wadsworth. She plunges her tongue deeper into her mouth, directing all of her anger into the kiss until her lips are sore and bruised. When she eventually pulls away, she is left breathless with the weight of her poor decision closing in around her.

“Well,” says Wadsworth. “That was certainly better than the alternative.”

Joan does not respond. She takes her hands away from Wadsworth in a calm, controlled movement that does not betray the fury and regret inside her. Without a second glance back, she grabs her purse and walks out of the office, ignoring Wadsworth’s admonishing words of “Joan, get back here.” She expects her to pursue her down the hall, but the slammed door in her face must have sent a clear message that their meeting is over.

She leaves the building in a daze, and the memory of the kiss distracts her as she drives back to her own office. She feels like she is spiraling, careening down a hill with no brakes, and if she had not removed herself from Wadsworth’s office she is sure that their encounter would have escalated further. Joan cannot allow herself to tread that dangerous path of intimacy, no matter how much the single kiss has made her hunger for more. That is what Wadsworth _wants_ , and Joan refuses to let her win another round.

Focusing on her work is a tall order when she has arrived at her office, and each moment that she spends thinking about Wadsworth feels like a failure. She waits for the phone to ring, with Wadsworth on the other end demanding to know why she had stormed out of the meeting. But Wadsworth likely _expects_ her to be sitting beside the phone anticipating her call, and so by not calling she is taking that extra step to drive Joan a little crazier.

When the phone eventually rings a little before three-thirty, she nearly jumps out of her skin. She fumbles for the receiver and takes a deep breath to brace herself before answering in her usual professional manner.

“Hi, Dr. Bright, it’s Chloe,” replies the voice on the other end. “I’m just calling for our weekly check-in. I know you’re not usually busy on Friday afternoons, so…”

Joan sighs in relief, never more thankful to hear Chloe’s cheerful voice. “Yes, Chloe, this is a perfect time,” she says. “How are you?”

She listens to Chloe talk about her latest art therapy session with Frank and getting in touch with some of her college friends now that she plans to return to school full-time for the upcoming fall semester. There’s something to be said about how easily she can lose herself in listening to a patient, even if it’s only through the phone due to the often intrusive nature of Chloe’s telepathy during their in-person sessions. She will have to be particularly careful the next time that she sees her face-to-face, of course, but that’s a bridge she will cross when she gets there.

When the calls ends, she returns the phone’s receiver to its cradle and lets out a deep sigh. Her worries about Wadsworth resurface now that she no longer has a distraction, but she only allows them a place in her mind for a few seconds before she turns her attention back to her work. She lets her notes and research consume her, burying herself like she always does when she wants to hide from the reality of a situation.

The phone does not ring for the rest of the afternoon.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a couple more pieces of dialogue borrowed from Episode 25.

Joan does not hear anything from Wadsworth for two weeks, and the radio silence sets her on edge with the looming question of whether Wadsworth will contact her before their next scheduled meeting. For a rebellious moment, Joan entertains the thought of not showing up at the AM on that particular Friday, but the call that she receives that morning has other ideas.

Her office phone rings within five minutes of her arrival at work, just as she sits down at her desk to review her schedule for the day. “Good morning, Joan,” Wadsworth greets her after she has answered the phone. “How have you been?”

“Do you really think I’m going to answer that?” Joan replies. Wadsworth’s perfect timing in calling her at the start of her workday is not lost on her, and it raises half a dozen questions about how she is so intimately familiar with her routine. “What do you want, Wadsworth?”

“I was just calling to confirm our meeting for two o’clock this afternoon,” she says. “After all, you left so quickly last time. I didn’t want you to think that you can get away from me that easily.”

Joan pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, closing her eyes and suppressing the sigh of exasperation that she wants to let out. “And if I don’t show up?” she asks.

“Oh, you’re going to show up.” Through the phone’s speaker, Wadsworth almost sounds amused at her lack of cooperation. “We have some unfinished business to discuss. And how will you find out whether I’ve found Mark and Damien unless you come in and ask me?”

“Or you could tell me now and save us both a lot of time.”

Wadsworth laughs. “Nice try, Joan. But I’m not going to make it that easy for you. I’ll see you at two. Don’t be late.”

She hangs up with no further words of farewell. Joan waits until she is certain that the other end of the call has gone dead before slamming down the phone. Her fingers tangle into her hair as she rests her head in her hands, taking a moment to gather herself before she begins the day’s work. She has a patient to see in an hour, after all, and so she must push forward as if nothing is wrong despite the troubling prospect of what awaits her this afternoon.

Joan reluctantly leaves her office a little before one-thirty and drives the half-hour to the AM’s facilities. The rational part of her knows that she needs to face Wadsworth with the same amount of distrust and loathing that she has carried for years, but a much more foolish part of her mind clings to the memory of the furious kiss they had shared. She hates what this lingering attraction has done to her, and yet the feeling still rises within her as she takes a seat in front of Wadsworth’s desk.

“I’m glad you finally made it, Joan.” Wadsworth looks up from her computer to focus her full attention upon her. “You’re two minutes late.”

“There was traffic,” Joan replies stiffly.

“Of course there was.” Wadsworth opens a folder that rests on her desk. “Well, we have a lot to talk about today. Where to begin, where to begin?” She makes a show out of looking through the papers, which Joan assumes are her relevant notes and reports from the past two weeks. “Maybe first you’ll do me the courtesy of telling me how you’re feeling today.”

“I didn’t think you had the capacity to care about other people’s feelings in your empty husk of a heart,” says Joan without skipping a beat.

“I care more than you think, Joan. I always have, at least when it comes to you.” Ignoring Joan’s scoff of disbelief, Wadsworth continues to flip through the folder. “Hmm. I see Caleb is back from his family holiday. That must make you happy. I know no one could replace Mark, but--”

Joan’s hands clench into fists in her lap at the casual comparison between Caleb and Mark. She doesn’t even question how Wadsworth has found out about Caleb’s return from a few weeks away at his family’s lake house. Wadsworth has not outright confirmed that she has her under surveillance, but Joan cannot think of any other way that she can keep up with recent events in her patients’ lives without tapping her phone or bugging her office.

“Any luck tracking Damien down yet?” she asks, cutting straight to the point and ignoring Wadsworth’s attempt to crawl deeper beneath her skin.

“No.”

“No?” Joan repeats incredulously. “Then why did you have me come here? Why did you make me think that you had information on his and Mark’s location?”

“I never said anything of the sort. I only said you’d have to come here to find out  _if_ I had any information. Anything else was merely your assumption. And you know what they say about people who assume.”

Joan huffs out a breath of frustration at the smug grin on Wadsworth’s face. “Will that be all, then?” she asks. “If you don’t have any new information for me and just want to make small talk about my patients, I see no reason to stay.”

“Of course that won’t be all. I wouldn’t have you come all the way here just to send you away after a few minutes. Like I told you earlier, we have some unfinished business to discuss.”

“If this is about how you kissed me to try to get me to cooperate--” Joan begins.

“ _I_ kissed _you_?” Wadsworth laughs. “Oh, Joan. We both know that the kiss was all you. Or did I just imagine your tongue down my throat?”

Joan ignores her claim and presses onward. “It was extremely unprofessional, not to mention manipulative--”

“Manipulative? Now _that’s_ a loaded word. Why would I need to manipulate you when I know that you’re eventually going to see reason and come back to work with me?”

Joan used to admire Wadsworth’s confidence in statements like these, when she would talk about future events as if she has already influenced the universe to make everything fall into place. She now sees through what had once blinded her, however, and she will not let Wadsworth’s firm belief in her return to the AM become a reality.

“Whatever tactic you think you’re using, it’s clearly not working,” she says.

“And yet you keep coming to my office anyway,” Wadsworth points out. “Baby steps, Joan. I’m willing to wait as long as it takes.”

“You’d better have a lot of time on your hands, then.”

Wadsworth observes her intently, as if she is a book that she wishes to read from start to finish despite already knowing the plot points that happen along the way. “You know, you’ve still got that look in your eyes,” she says.

“What look?”

“The look that says--how did you put it in our last meeting?” Wadsworth taps her chin thoughtfully. “Oh, right. Whether you’re not sure you want to kiss me or wring my neck. That one kiss wasn’t enough for you, was it?”

Joan is conscious to keep her gaze straight ahead, meeting Wadsworth’s eyes and not flickering down to her lips. “The kiss never should have happened in the first place,” she says. “But…”

“You want it to happen again,” Wadsworth supplies.

Joan does not respond, but her silence speaks loudly enough. She sits with her arms crossed, not moving even when Wadsworth now stands in front of her. One of Wadsworth’s hands cups around her chin as she leans closer to her, and her touch sends a familiar spark of purely physical desire through Joan’s body. Despite the overwhelming urge to push Wadsworth’s hand away, she does not resist her advances and instead glares at her with daggers in her eyes.

“I really, _really_ loathe you,” she says.

“Oh, I know you do.” Wadsworth’s hand does not move from Joan’s face. “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

It would be so easy for Joan to tilt her chin up to meet Wadsworth’s lips, kissing her with the same intersection of anger and passion that had driven her two weeks earlier. But that’s what Wadsworth _wants_ : for her to give in and make the same mistake twice, three times, until she has convinced herself that it is _not_ a mistake. If Wadsworth wanted nothing more than a kiss from her, she would not wait for Joan to initiate it. Her game is more about power than intimacy, and Joan refuses to give her the satisfaction of playing directly into her hands.

At the stubborn lack of a response, Wadsworth sighs and withdraws her hand. “Well, it’s your loss, Joan,” she says. She returns to her desk and sits down. “We still have plenty of time left. Is there anything that you’d like to discuss other than your quite obviously misaimed hatred of me?”

“It’s not--” Joan begins, but the word “misaimed” dies away before it leaves her lips. There is too much to address on that front, and she does not yet have the words to express just how deeply Wadsworth has shaped her past two years. For Wadsworth their interactions are a mere continuation, but for Joan they are like reopening a barely healed wound that bleeds with doubt and distrust.

Wadsworth raises her eyebrows. “Yes?” she prompts her. “Go on.”

“If you don’t understand, even just a little, why I hate you and what you’ve done, then there’s nothing for us to talk about.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly.” Wadsworth leans back comfortably in her chair. “You’re holding on to this grudge because it’s easier for you to hate me than to take responsibility for your own failures. You failed to get Mark back even after you thought you’d developed the perfect plan, and you’ve lied to and kept secrets from multiple patients who you have a professional responsibility for. But rather than owning up to those mistakes, you project all of those feelings onto me, because you _really_ don’t want to think about how much you hate yourself.”

For someone without a degree in psychology, Wadsworth certainly has made a shrewd analysis, but she has underestimated the strength of Joan’s hatred and anger. As those feelings swirl inward and sneak into her self-perception, they also spill out to find an external home. _That_ is what she feels for Wadsworth, not a substitution but an addition, and it is there that Wadsworth has miscalculated.

“I think,” she says, maintaining a sense of forced calm in her voice, “we’re done here.”

A frown of disappointment crosses Wadsworth’s lips. “Very well,” she replies. “I’ll see you in two weeks. Maybe then we’ll get closer to a breakthrough.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

Joan exits the office with no further words to her, leaving the icy retort hanging in the air before she shuts the door behind her. She remains flustered and distracted for the remainder of her workday, and when she finally returns home in the evening she immediately makes a path for the couch. A sigh of defeat expels itself from her lungs as she collapses against the cushions, thoroughly exhausted from having to deal with Wadsworth’s mind games.

Soon a furry form has leapt up to join her on the couch. Joan has never been one for pets, but she has been happy to watch Sam’s cat for her while she travels the country in a blind search for Mark. At the very least, she appreciates Darwin’s uncanny ability of sensing when she is troubled, and now more than ever she is glad to have the company of a purring cat to distract her from her thoughts.

After a few minutes, during which she debates whether she should get up and disturb Darwin’s comfortable position on her lap, she retrieves her cell phone from her purse to check if she has received any personal calls or messages while at work. When she sees a missed call and voicemail from Sam, her heart leaps with the possibility that she has defied all odds and located Mark. The more realistic side of her pulls her back down to Earth as she listens to the voicemail left earlier this afternoon.

“Hi, Joan,” says Sam. “I know I probably should have called your work number, but I didn’t want to bother you in case you were busy, so… Well, I guess I’ll just leave you this message and call again later. Everything’s fine, by the way,” she adds hastily. “I mean, nothing’s happened. I haven’t found Mark. And driving around and talking to people still terrifies me. But my trips have been under control so far, and I’m definitely not ready to give up yet. So yeah, things are good, I guess.” A pause of dead space passes for a couple of seconds before she speaks again. “Anyway, call me back when you get a chance. Or I’ll try calling again tonight. Whichever. Okay, um… Bye.”

The message ends. Joan knows that she should return the call, but she cannot bring herself to do so. Looking at herself with the objective examination that she would give to a patient, she recognizes this particular pattern of behavior: how during times of stress she shuts herself away from the rest of the world and refuses to admit that something is wrong. Her self-awareness does not serve her well, however, not when she has been spiraling downward for almost a month now. Her anger that Wadsworth has so shrewdly observed consumes her, pulling her in and letting her drown. Even though Sam has already seen her in a state of vulnerability when her hope of seeing Mark again was snatched away after Damien hijacked the rescue mission, she does not want to face her while so many complicated emotions weigh on her mind.

Darwin climbs back onto her lap in a demand for her continued attention. She indulges him with a few gentle pats as he curls up against her.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she murmurs to herself with a weary sigh.

Darwin looks up at her and responds with an almost sympathetic meow. He doesn’t understand what she is saying, of course, but there’s something comforting in how her current companion will not judge her for how much she has let Wadsworth get to her. Three meetings with the same results indicate that every alternating Friday will end this same way until Wadsworth finds a reason to stop trying to pull her back into the old life they once shared. But Joan has no choice but to endure, because otherwise she is giving up on the only thing that matters to her: bringing Mark home.

She gives herself a couple more minutes to stew in her self-pity, and then she steels herself against her thoughts and pushes forward past the hold that Wadsworth has on her.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later, the cycle continues and Joan is back in Wadsworth’s office, sitting across from her with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face in a continued model of uncooperativeness.

“I suppose the old ‘doctors make the worst patients’ adage applies to therapists as well,” Wadsworth says. She surveys Joan closely, searching for a useful response in her stony expression. “You have to talk to me, Joan.”

“Or what?” she asks.

The slight upturn of Wadsworth’s lips verges upon the danger zone of a threat. “Do you really want to find out?”

“Ooh, blackmailing a patient, Wadsworth?” Joan retorts, her voice dripping with scandalized sarcasm. “Is that ethical?”

“You would know best, Joan.” Wadsworth’s threatening smile transforms into her usual smirk of satisfaction at having maintained the upper hand in their conversation. “Speaking of which, I thought that today we could talk about some of your patients.” She taps the file folder in front of her. “The information that Agent Green gets from his meetings with you is all well and good, but there are a few blanks that I’d like to fill in with your help.”

“I told him everything he needs to know during our last quarterly meeting,” says Joan.

Wadsworth laughs. “Oh, you and I both know that’s not true, Joan. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had to pry information from you about the true nature of Damien’s ability during a follow-up call. You’re _gravely_ mistaken if you think you can protect yourself and your patients by lying to us, because I’ll always find out the truth.” She opens the folder. “Namely, the truth of where you’re hiding your time traveler.”

Joan knows she cannot keep Sam hidden from the AM forever, but she refuses to surrender even when she is fighting a losing battle. “And why do you assume that the time traveler is a patient of mine in the first place?” she asks.

“Because I know you, Joan. Even if you just happened to meet an atypical by chance, you wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to further investigate their ability. _Especially_ an ability that happened to be exactly what you needed to free your brother from where he was trapped in the past. And you would have to be in a position of power over this person to most easily manipulate them into helping you. Hence, a patient.”

“You have Green’s reports in front of you,” says Joan. “Do you see any time travelers there?”

“No, but I _do_ see a Class D that you’ve been evasive about. The transcript of Green’s last meeting with you shows that you devolved into some _very_ childish blame-game accusations to distract him from asking further details about the patient’s ability.” Wadsworth shuffles through a few pages in the folder. “I also have a transcript of a phone call you made to him requesting some of our dimensional research, during which you claimed that the patient is a space manipulator who can walk through walls. But she isn’t, is she, Joan?” She returns her gaze to her. “Simple process of elimination tells me that she has to be the one. Patient 12-D-9, Samantha Barnes.”

“What do you want with her?” Joan demands.

“Nothing, yet.” The inevitability of the word “yet” does not give her much comfort. “I’m just curious about how she was able to pull Mark out of the past without being physically present in the building. The upper limit of his range for sharing others’ abilities is only around thirty feet. Even if Samantha managed to find his mind in the past, she would have had to be within that distance of his comatose body to pull him back to the present. And yet the only unaccounted-for atypical in the building at the time of the break-in was our good friend Damien. Something isn’t adding up, and I’m sure you know why.”

Joan imagines Wadsworth puzzling over Sam’s file, trying to figure out how Mark’s mind had been pulled out of his temporal prison. Her immediate instinct is to withhold the information, because it feels _good_ to know something that Wadsworth doesn’t. As Wadsworth meets her eyes unblinkingly, however, she cannot resist the unspoken command to share what she knows.

“She isn’t a mental time traveler,” she admits, the words spilling out before she can stop them. “She can physically travel back in time, and that was how she was able to locate him and bring him back to the present without being in the building. That was why I wanted the dimensional research from Green. I _wasn’t_ lying about that part.”

“Very interesting.” Wadsworth leans back in her chair and steeples her fingers together. “It looks like you’ve been holding out on us. Physical time travel--that’s an ability with the potential to cause a _lot_ of damage. You should have reported her to us right away. Who knows what she’s been up to in the past, other than contributing to the jailbreak of another dangerous atypical.”

“Sam is harmless,” Joan retorts. “So is Mark, even though I know convincing you of that is a lost cause by now. And besides, Sam would never use her ability for anything dangerous or illegal.”

“And yet I’m sure she was perfectly happy to help you free Mark once you convinced her,” says Wadsworth. “It’s always a slippery slope with atypicals. They figure out the little ways that they can use their abilities to get ahead in the world, and soon they’re one step away from bringing harm to themselves or other people around them. And here you are, encouraging them to use their powers in less than upstanding ways. That’s not a very good practice, you know.”

“I didn’t force her to work with me,” Joan replies. “In fact, once I became aware that she’d met Mark on her travels, I _discouraged_ her from getting further involved. I warned her of the dangers that she would face if she used her ability to help me, and I told her to not make the decision lightly.”

“Ah, but that’s a classic manipulation tactic, isn’t it, Joan? You make the other person think that it’s _their_ idea to help you and that they have a say in the matter. But in reality, you know that you’ve already gotten them so invested that their choice was always going to be _your_ choice. It looks like you learned something from your time working with me after all.”

“I--” Joan opens her mouth to object but ultimately falls short, because she cannot deny that some of her behavior toward both Sam and Chloe falls directly into the category of “manipulative.” She has always justified it as a necessary part of saving Mark, however, and the occasional breaches of ethics are a small price to pay for his freedom. “You always _were_ the best at convincing people to do what you wanted,” she admits grudgingly.

“You don’t have to sound so disgusted about it,” says Wadsworth. “You can pretend that you’re all upright and moral, but I know you’re just like me. You’re willing to do _anything_ to get the results you want.”

“Not anything,” Joan murmurs.

Wadsworth’s focus upon her sharpens with the glint of her eyes and the swift closure of the file folder on her desk. “So, satisfy my scientific curiosity,” she says. “What is the exact nature of Samantha’s ability?”

“You should know all about time-travel abilities by now,” Joan replies. “You certainly spent enough time researching them.”

“Yes, but not _physical_ time travel. What kind of space does she occupy in the past? Being physically present in the past has the potential to get very messy very quickly. I’m sure there must be some kind of catch that prevents her from changing the course of history whenever she goes back in time.”

“Most of her travels bring her to extremely mundane points in history. I highly doubt she’s interested in influencing world events.” Only influencing the events of her own past, but of course Joan is not going to share that detail. She wants to maintain _some_ semblance of Sam’s privacy and confidentiality despite Wadsworth’s attempts to squeeze every last detail out of her.

“Mm. You’d be surprised. And you’re dodging the question, Joan.”

Joan exhales a frustrated breath. “Her body vanishes from the present whenever she travels back to the past--‘trips,’ as we call them. But she doesn’t quite have a physical existence in the past. Instead she occupies a middle dimension where others can’t see or interact with her.”

“A fourth dimension,” says Wadsworth. “If we exist in three dimensions, physical time travelers exist on an additional dimension that we can’t perceive. Fascinating.”

“Yes, exactly.” A trace of Joan’s old admiration sneaks its way into her thoughts. Despite everything that has happened between them, she has missed conversations like these where Wadsworth would never cease to impress her with her intelligence in their exchange of ideas and theories. “But there _are_ loopholes to it, and that was how she was able to get Mark out. By permeating the dimensional edges,” she adds before Wadsworth can ask. “Some substances, like water, _do_ affect her in the past. She used that to her advantage to create a conduit of sorts to pull Mark back to the present with her.”

“How intriguing.” Wadsworth’s face remains impassive, but Joan knows that the wheels must be spinning in her head as she thinks about how she can incorporate this newfound knowledge into her work. “It sounds like you have quite the extraordinary atypical on your hands. I’m impressed.”

Her last words may have once meant everything to Joan, but they now bring her nothing but disgust. “You’re not getting _your_ hands on her, you know,” she says. “She isn’t a danger to anyone, and her control has gotten much better since I’ve been working with her. The last thing she needs is the added anxiety of dealing with _you_.”

“Good Lord, you don’t need to be so dramatic about it. You know that we bring atypicals here for their own good. But luckily for you, I don’t think bringing Samantha here would be productive. God knows you’ve poisoned her opinion of us deeply enough that none of our programs would help her.”

“So you’ll leave her alone,” Joan replies--not a question but rather a statement that challenges Wadsworth to do the decent thing and not harass a woman who has already endured more than a person ever should.

“You know I can’t do that, Joan,” says Wadsworth. “At the very least, we need to keep an eye on her, and I can’t trust you to give me an unbiased report. I’ll have one of our agents do regular check-ins with her. Weekly at first, and then possibly less frequent from there if she proves herself to be trustworthy and cooperative. I think that’s a fair compromise, don’t you?”

“She’s out of town right now.” Joan doesn’t expect this information to deter Wadsworth, but it’s worth a try regardless. “It might be difficult to contact her.”

“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t want to interrupt a vacation. Or a search in the dark for Mark.”

“How--” Even after knowing Wadsworth for all these years, the extent of her knowledge never ceases to surprise her. The very real possibility of Wadsworth keeping her under surveillance enters her mind once more. “How did you know that she was looking for Mark?”

“I didn’t. But thanks for confirming it.”

Joan curses herself for falling directly into Wadsworth’s trap, the same one she has seen her lay for countless others before her. “At least she’s doing something to find him,” she says. “That’s more than you can say.”

“And it’s more than _you_ can say as well. What have you been doing on that front lately, hmm? And don’t say that you’ve been coming here to find information. We both know that’s not the only reason you’ve put up with these meetings.”

“Why else would I come here?” Joan speaks each word pointedly, challenging Wadsworth to find another meaning in them. “I don’t do it for your sake, that’s for sure.”

“You can lie to yourself all you want, but we both know that isn’t true. And one day, when you’re feeling a little more cooperative, we _will_ get to the bottom of that.”

Joan does not dignify her statement with a response. At her return to stony silence, Wadsworth sighs in exasperation.

“Oh, Joan, you were doing so well,” she says. “But I’ll cut you some slack, since we’re just about out of time right now. I’d like to see more of this cooperation in our next meeting, though. The information that you’ve given me about Samantha Barnes will be _very_ useful.”

Joan does not dare ask what Wadsworth means by “useful.” She rises from her chair and regards her for a lingering moment. Wadsworth meets her gaze expectantly, waiting for her to say something, but Joan has nothing to say that doesn’t end in an outpouring of every complicated feeling that has found a home inside her.

“Have a good afternoon,” says Wadsworth. “I’ll see you back here in two weeks.”

Joan leaves the room and closes the door behind her. She leans against the wall outside the door and exhales a breath of relief before walking away. The muffled sound of Wadsworth’s voice from within her office soon draws her back as she leans in to pick up some of the words. The bits and pieces that she hears indicates that Wadsworth is adding her own thoughts to the end of the recording of their meeting, a practice that Joan is familiar with from her own audio notes.

“We’re on the brink of some real progress,” Wadsworth says. “Give it a couple more meetings, and I might be able to finally get through to her. If not… Well, I have a few more ideas I can try. Either way, it won’t be long until Asset 43 is under control again, and then we can finally put all of this messy business behind us.” And then, so softly that Joan can barely hear her: “It’s been too long for me to give up now.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Portions of this chapter are adapted from episodes 25 and 33. (This is the last chapter that heavily draws from/overlaps with canon events - after this it's mostly just weaving between some major canon moments)

Two months after the break-in, during her sixth disciplinary meeting with Wadsworth, Joan finally snaps.

It’s not the biggest mistake that she has made during their meetings, because that honor belongs to the kiss that they shared, but her descent from stubborn irritation into an emotional outburst is not one of her proudest moments in recent memory. She has known that her breaking point would come eventually, and so it is only a matter of which of Wadsworth’s tactics will set off that bomb. It turns out that something as simple as an almost genuine declaration of “I care about you,” an empty echo of what Wadsworth had said so many times before everything about their relationship went to hell, is all it takes to ignite the fuse.

“You want me to talk about my _feelings_? Fine.” Joan lets her emotions spill forth as she unshackles the pain and betrayal that have been trapped inside her for far too long. “You know, I used to think that you were the most incredible woman I’d ever met. I remember my first week at the AM, the chatter that would go on when you walked by. ‘Look, that’s Special Agent Wadsworth, she;s identified more atypicals than anyone else in this office.’ ‘Did you hear about Special Agent Wadsworth? She went up against a multiplier and talked all four of him down by herself.’ ‘Did you hear? Special Agent Wadsworth got promoted to Associate Director, the youngest ever.’”

Wadsworth watches her with the arrogant smugness that Joan expects, having at last received the emotional reaction that she has spent two months trying to pull out of her. She does not say anything yet, and Joan is certainly not interested in letting her get a word in.

“You were fearless and in charge and brilliant,” she continues on. “Your report on the effect of exhaustion on those with invisibility changed the way I thought about the relationship between an atypical and their power. By the time I had graduated and was working full-time here, I wanted to be just like you. I mean, here you were, only four years older than me and practically running the place. When you decided to take me of all people under your wing, I knew I was in the right place.” Her hands are shaking, and she clenches them into tight fists to try to disguise her outward fury. “I know I’m the practicing psychologist out of the two of us, but you’ve been doing this work for a long time. I’m sure you can guess what it does to a person to have the rose-colored glass around their role model shatter so completely. Finding enough about the experiments was bad enough, but even then I made excuses for you to myself. ‘She doesn’t have control over everything. These were in place before she got here. I’m sure she’s doing everything she can to find a better way, a way to advance the field without hurting people.’ But you _weren’t_.”

She does not realize that she has risen to her feet until she takes a breath and comes back into herself to discover that she is standing in front of Wadsworth’s desk with her hands slammed down against its surface. Her thoughts are pouring out too quickly for her to reel them back in, and so she remains where she stands as she presses forward.

“I’ve never been that wrong about someone before.’ Her voice trembles in her fury. “So you can imagine how I felt--betrayed, hurt, embarrassed. You duped me so completely, made a fool out of me, and destroyed the most important relationship in my life. You made me doubt and question _everything_. How could I _ever_ trust my own judgment again when I had chosen to trust you?”

A satisfied smile crosses Wadsworth’s lips. She almost looks _proud_ , as if she wants to applaud Joan for digging so deeply into her anger “You see, Joan?” she says. “I knew talking about this would be good for the both of us. Saying these things out loud, airing out all the dirty laundry, is an important, necessary step. This is very good progress.” She glances at the clock on the wall. “Okay, we’re out of time now, but I’ll see you in two weeks. Don’t lose this momentum. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us yet.”

Joan steps back from Wadsworth’s desk at the invitation to go. She walks toward the door, and before taking her leave she turns to face Wadsworth to offer a final honest sentiment.

“You know, Ellie, there was once a time when I thought I loved you.”

Wadsworth’s face remains impassive in the brief silence that follows. “I know,“ is all she says.

Joan expects her to continue with her usual speech about how it’s not too late for them to regain the closeness they once had, but instead Wadsworth merely rises from her chair and crosses the room to stand face-to-face with her. As Wadsworth reaches for the door handle to see her out of the office, their hands touch. The contact is brief enough to pass for accidental, but Joan jerks her hand away regardless.

“Have a wonderful afternoon, Joan,” Wadsworth says.

Joan does not look at her when she walks by, and the only thing she leaves in her wake is the stony tension of her silence.

 

* * *

 

Joan expects the next meeting to pick up where she and Wadsworth left off, taking a deeper dive into the previously unaddressed feelings that Joan had blurted out, but from the moment that she enters the office, Wadsworth barely mentions the revelations of the previous meeting at all.

Instead, she solicits Joan’s help with a current patient in Tier 2--not in any direct capacity, of course, but on a purely theoretical level. “You’ve had great success with your own teenage empath, after all,” Wadsworth says when explaining the case to her. “Surely you can give us some ideas that we might have overlooked.”

Joan complies, not only because she suspects she has no choice in the matter, but because she cannot deny that the AM’s more benign programs _do_ benefit many atypicals. Her cooperation does not stop her from internally questioning the game that Wadsworth is playing with her. Does she intend to lure her into a false sense of security by distracting her with work matters, only to pounce upon her when her guard is down? Does she believe that Joan’s aid in this particular instance is the first step toward returning to their old partnership? She can never know with Wadsworth, and the on-edge paranoia that accompanies each of these thoughts reminds her of every word that had spilled out two weeks ago.

But Joan has new things in her life to distract her from dwelling on Wadsworth in the time between their meetings. Sam returns from her roadtrip midway through September, and although Joan feels a slight twinge of disappointment that she was not able to find Mark, she now has a new energy in her that Joan appreciates. At Chloe’s encouragement, she also agrees to finally meet Frank after hearing so much about him over the past several months. He cannot be one of her official patients, because he is more atypical-adjacent than fully atypical, but everything that she has learned thus far about his unique experiences in the military has piqued her curiosity. She will have to wait until she is able to have a full session with him to get the entire picture, but between her scientific interest in him and the aid that she gives to Sam’s new project of researching atypicals throughout time, she has not felt so invigorated by her work since devising her plan to free Mark. It’s a small comfort after the turmoil that she has endured since July, and she savors every respite she can find from worrying about Mark and dreading her visits to the AM.

She can never be prepared for the next curveball that her mess of a life throws at her, however, and soon she is sent careening in a tailspin once more.

It begins with a voicemail from Mark received hours too late, because of _course_ the one time he calls she is unable to pick up. He sounds more scared and lost than Joan has ever heard him, but it’s still his voice talking to her for the first time in years. After the message ends, she immediately replays it, clinging to every word that he utters as she searches for the barest hint of a clue that she can use to discern his location. But unless she can figure out how to track Damien’s phone that he had used to call, she remains as lost as he is, and she can only take comfort in the confirmation that he is alive and at least somewhat well.

Joan decides to get a full night’s sleep before planning her next move, and so early the next afternoon she is back in her office with Sam and Chloe. She regrets dragging them further into her personal life, but Sam has made it clear that she is in this for the long haul and Chloe’s heart is too big for her to not offer her help despite Joan’s objections. Three heads are better than one, after all, and surely together they can figure _something_ out.

What she does not expect, however, is the unrelated news that Chloe shares once they have gathered in the waiting room.

“Adam’s aunt Annabelle is Ellie Wadsworth,” she says. “She’s the same woman. I saw her in Adam’s thoughts yesterday and it took me a bit, but then I realized it’s the same woman Dr. Bright pictures when she thinks about Wadsworth. Yeah, you’re picturing her right now.”

The revelation hits Joan like a bucket of cold water to her face. In her shock she barely remembers to bury her thoughts about Wadsworth to avoid revealing too much to Chloe and her prying mind. Trying not to think about Wadsworth only makes Joan think about her _more_ , however, and she must recontextualize all of their previous encounter now that Wadsworth has managed to insert herself into yet another aspect of her life.

Despite her attempts to maintain a calm and professional exterior, it isn’t long before she and Chloe descend into one of their usual arguments about privacy and the use of her telepathy. Chloe storming out of her office in frustration is certainly not the ideal end result, but Joan supposes that it’s for the best that Chloe knows when to step away while everyone’s emotions are running high. She will worry about patching things up with her later when she is less overwhelmed and preoccupied.

“Are you okay?” Sam eventually asks her. “Sorry, insane question, I just… When Chloe told us about Annabelle, you went really, _really_ pale.”

“I, uh…” Joan gathers her thoughts into an explanation that Sam can understand without revealing too much. “There was actually a part of me that thought, just for a moment, that Ellie was Adam’s aunt _because_ of me. That it was all part of an elaborate scheme to insert herself back into my life.”

“Wow.” Sam regards her with a look that almost resembles pity. It’s strange to be on the receiving end of her concern, but if the two of them are going to be friends Joan has to get used to the idea of a former patient worrying about her. “She’s really in your head, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Joan admits. “I suppose she is.”

She is careful not to say anything too incriminating as Sam presses her for more details about her recent meetings with Wadsworth. Even as she talks about how stepping foot into the AM facilities only elicits the tainted memories of years past, she finds some of her old admiration seeping into her voice as part of the eternal struggle between her hatred and Wadsworth’s magnetic pull. She briefly wonders if she should fully lean into today’s trend of confronting her faults and tell Sam _everything_ about her and Wadsworth, but before she can map out the possible consequences of that revelation, the phone rings.

“Do you think--” Sam begins, on the brink of saying the hope that they both cling to.

Joan holds up a hand to silence her as she approaches her desk. She exhales a deep breath to prepare herself for disappointment before she answers the phone.

“Hello?” she says, foregoing her usual professional response.

“Joan? Hello?” replies the voice on the other end, and her heart soars at its familiar sound. “Oh my God, Joanie, is that actually you?”

“Mark?” she breathes. After everything that has happened, part of her is convinced that his voice is merely an echo that will soon be snatched away from her. But no, he is truly there on the other end of the phone, not a figment or a trick but _real_ , and her hand flies to her mouth as she is left unsure whether to laugh or cry in relief.

“Yes, Joanie,” he assures her. “It’s me. It’s Mark.”

She has so many questions that she wants to ask him, but she has to begin with the basics of “Are you okay?” and “Where are you?” She’s not sure whether to believe him when he says that he’s fine, but at least he is alive and willing to do whatever it takes to get home. The detail of how Mark has completely overtaken Damien’s ability worries her, of course, but she cannot do anything until she has a better grasp on what has transpired. The only thing she can do is wait, sustained by the promise that Mark will be home soon and his cut-off farewell of “I love you” before the payphone he is using runs out of time.

After the call ends and Sam leaves a few minutes later, Joan decides she might as well get some work done while she is at her office. She can only distract herself for so long, however, and so by the time she is on her way home Wadsworth has wormed her way back into her thoughts. She tries to think of a way that she could have foreseen the connection between Wadsworth and Adam. She has always known that Wadsworth has a nephew who lives locally, but Joan has had no prior reason to believe that this nephew would ever be relevant to her or her patients. The only clue that she can think of that could have pointed her toward the truth is the connection between Adam’s parents and the AM via the military experiments. Before today she’d assumed that the Hayes’ involvement could have come from anywhere, perhaps a colleague or networking contact, but now she realizes that of _course_ Wadsworth would invite her neurosurgeon sister to work on one of the AM’s side projects. Without the power of hindsight, however, Joan is not sure she could have put those details together, and so Wadsworth has once again caught her off-guard and sent her reeling.

When she arrives at her apartment, she restlessly debates what to do next. She knows that she cannot let this revelation go unaddressed, and she needs to hear the confirmation from Wadsworth herself: that she truly is so unlucky that the boyfriend of one of her patients is the nephew of her ex… _something_. Unless she wants to endure the unbearable wait until their next scheduled meeting, she will have to do something she never wants to do and contact her directly.

She paces a path around her living room, falling into a pattern of picking up and then immediately putting down her phone whenever she passes its place on the coffee table, until she forces herself to make the call. She had deleted Wadsworth’s cell phone number from her contacts list long ago, and so her only choice is to call her office line and hope for the best.

“Joan! What a surprise,” says Wadsworth on the other end of the call. Joan isn’t sure whether to be relieved that she has picked up, especially when upon hearing her voice she realizes that she has no idea what to say to her. “You’re lucky to have caught me in a free moment. What’s on your mind? You _never_ call in between our meetings like this.”

Everything that Joan wants to say jumbles together in her mind, unable to arrange itself into a coherent explanation of why she has called. “Your nephew,” is what finally leaves her mouth. “Adam Hayes. He’s your nephew. You’re his aunt.”

In any other situation, she would revel in having rendered Wadsworth briefly speechless, but she is currently in no place to take pleasure in her surprised and confused silence. “Why the sudden interest in my family, Joan?” Wadsworth finally responds with a strange note of defensiveness in her voice.

“Don’t play dumb, Ellie.” She sits down on the couch to halt her restless steps. “You _knew_ that your nephew is dating one of my patients. That’s how you know things about Caleb that aren’t in my reports. Because I’m sure your ears perked right up when you found out that your nephew has an atypical boyfriend who just _happens_ to be a patient of mine.”

“Contrary to what you may think, not everything I do is a grand conspiracy against you personally,” says Wadsworth. “Yes, I like to keep up with what’s happening in Adam’s life, especially because I don’t have the time to see him as often as I’d like. But I’m not orchestrating the relationships of my seventeen-year-old nephew as a way to get to you.”

“I know you’re not,” Joan replies. “But you have to admit that it’s one hell of a coincidence.”

“It’s not the first time your life has operated on coincidence, and it won’t be the last. I’d try not to read too much into it.” The initial surprise in Wadsworth’s voice has faded as she regains control of the conversation. “I do my job to ensure that Adam and the rest of my family never have to worry about the world of atypicals more than they need to. You may have no qualms in pulling your patients into your petty grudge against me and the rest of the AM, but I don’t like that line being crossed when it comes to my family. So if Adam gets involved in whatever it is that you’re doing, you’ll certainly be hearing from me.”

“Is that a threat?” Joan asks.

“Consider it a friendly reminder,” says Wadsworth. “Now, is there any other reason why you called? You know how much I love chatting with you, but I have a lot of important work to do, and I’d rather not waste any more time.”

Joan carefully considers her response, debating whether she should reveal today’s other major development. “I heard from Mark,” she says. “He’s on his way home.”

“That’s wonderful news,” Wadsworth replies with a sentiment that is too genuine to be self-serving. “I hope you get to see him soon.”

“And you’ll keep your hands off him once he’s back?” Joan asks. Wadsworth’s general lack of interest in sending out a search party for Mark indicates that she is finished with him, but without further confirmation Joan can never be sure.

“You have my word, Joan,” Wadsworth assures her. “As long as he keeps his head down and doesn’t cause any problems, he’s all yours.”

“Good.” Joan places as much finality as she can into her response. “Goodbye, Wadsworth.”

She ends the call without waiting for her reply. As her phone’s screen goes blank she is no closer to knowing her next move, but for the first time in years she feels the light of hope inside her, secure in the knowledge that the day she sees Mark again draws steadily nearer.


	10. Chapter 10

It takes longer than Joan ever wanted it to take, but Mark finally comes home on a brisk early October afternoon.

Years of unspoken words go into the hug that they share when they take a private moment to talk. There is a wide gulf of distance between the two of them that still needs to be bridged, and Joan knows that she should admit certain things to him after years of secrecy, but for now she focuses on her relief that he has come back to her more or less in one piece. Everything else--and there is a _lot_ else--can wait for at least a few minutes.

After her workday has come to a close, she drives back to her apartment with Mark, politely declining Sam’s invitation for them to come to dinner with her and Chloe. When she glances over at him in the passenger seat and sees him quiet and not-quite dozing, a sense of nostalgia floods her as she remembers sitting next to him in the back seat during the long car rides of their youth. She’d always been relieved when he fell asleep in the car back then, no longer able to distract her as she tried to read, but now his silence unsettles her.

“So what’s up with how one of your patients is apparently dating Wadsworth’s nephew?” Mark asks finally, his voice breaking through the low volume of the music playing on the radio. “Are you going to explain how that happened?”

“I can’t talk to you about my patients’ personal lives,” Joan replies, not that she expects that to deter him. “I try to uphold at least _some_ semblance of doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Bullshit, Joanie. We’re not going to start things off with you keeping secrets from me again. I’m sure you’re a good therapist and everything, but you literally used two of your patients to break me out of atypical prison. Don’t pretend that you’re all about following the rules.”

Joan sighs, unable to defend herself against any accusations of unethical behavior. “I suppose by virtue of being my brother and a former captive of the AM, you’re never not going to be involved in this. But there’s actually not much to tell you. Caleb… _my patient_ only found out about it today, thanks to you broadcasting my thoughts--”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Mark cuts in. “It’s been a while since I’ve been around a telepath. It can be kind of overwhelming sometimes.”

“--and his boyfriend is currently unaware of how his aunt factors into everything with you, me, and the AM,” Joan continues on. “Although I don’t think that Caleb will keep him in the dark for long. Both of them hate secrets as much as you do.”

“Damn. Imagine having that woman for your aunt. Like, what must the family gatherings be like? Does she pretend that she has a totally normal job that doesn’t involve kidnapping and experimenting on people?”

“I have no idea,” says Joan. “I won’t deny that she has many different sides to her.”

Mark makes a sound halfway between a scoff and a humorless laugh. As the car rolls to a stop at a traffic light, she casts another glance in his direction. In addition to the exhaustion and worry that he has carried with him ever since walking into her office, she sees something else in his expression. It’s a subtlety that most others would not pick up on, but after knowing him for his entire life Joan recognizes the “elephant-in-the-room” look that reminds her that she still has so much more to tell him about her time working for the AM. She is not sure how much he already knows about how closely she and Wadsworth had worked together, and she certainly does not intend to tell him about the true nature of her and Wadsworth’s relationship, at least not yet. He does not need his first day of freedom to be ruined by the revelation one of her biggest mistakes.

“Have you heard anything from her since I got broken out?” Mark asks. “I mean, she probably suspects that you were involved. Especially because it wasn’t a mass breakout or anything. It was just me, through what I’m sure was a very well-crafted plan before Damien fucked everything up.”

“She’s been making me come to the AM every other week for ‘disciplinary meetings,’” Joan says. She puts air quotes around the words as best as she can while keeping her hands on the steering wheel. “I’ve mostly been putting up with her because I hoped she’d be able to give me information about where you and Damien were. But apparently looking for you wasn’t her top priority.”

“Disciplinary meetings. Jesus.” Mark slumps down in his seat. “What a power-tripping asshole.”

“Indeed.” The traffic light turns green, and Joan drives onward. “You don’t need to worry about her, though. Like I said earlier, the AM won’t be getting their hands on you again if I have anything to say about it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Over your dead body, I’m sure.” Mark’s voice then softens, his grim humor receding into genuineness. “Just… Thanks, Joanie. For everything. You saved me, you and Sam both. And I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“You’re welcome. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

When they arrive at her apartment, Joan gives him time to take in his surroundings. The space has not changed much since the last time he was here, which now feels like a lifetime ago. She waits for him to comment about how she _really_ needs to update her interior decorating, or how he appreciates how she still has some of his extra nature and landscape prints framed on her walls, but instead he takes in everything in silence.

“It’s like nothing’s changed,” he says finally. “Do you still have the place to yourself?”

“Yes,” she replies. “And if that’s a not-so-subtle way of asking me if I’m with someone--”

“Hey, if I wanted to find out about your love life, I would just ask you outright. You know that I’d never pass up a chance to make fun of your taste in men.”

Or taste in women, Joan supposes, but she’s not ready to dive into that detail with him yet. “Well, for your information,” she says, “no, I’m not currently seeing anyone. I, um, I actually haven’t for a couple of years now.”

Much to her relief, Mark does not offer any follow-up questions or teasing comments. Instead he collapses onto the couch in his exhaustion, sprawling himself out on the cushions as if he is ready to fall asleep at this very moment.

“Should I let you get some more sleep, or should I find some dinner for us?” she asks.

He opens his eyes. “Food. Food is good.”

“I’ll go find the takeout menus,” says Joan. “Unless you want me to make you mac and cheese like when we were kids?”

“I’m not eight years old anymore, Joanie. But thanks for offering.”

They decide to order Thai food from a place down the street, and so it’s not long before they are sitting in awkward silence around the kitchen table as they eat. Joan has anticipated that the two of them would have so much to talk about upon their reunion, but now she finds herself unable to think of anything to say. She has so many questions about what Mark has endured over the past five years, but as much as her therapist instincts want to gently press him for more details, she needs to give him time to readjust to this new life before she starts peeling back the layers of his trauma.

“What are your plans for tomorrow?” she eventually asks.

He gives a startled twitch, as if in the silence he has forgotten that she is there. “I’m not sure yet,” he replies. “I guess I should start doing everything I need to enter society again. It’s not like Damien was interested in making sure I had a cell phone, a valid driver’s license, and an active bank account after he broke me out. Not when he could just control me into staying in the weird little world he made for us.” He pushes his hair out of his eyes. “And I should get a haircut while I’m at it, too. You wouldn’t happen to own a set of clippers, would you? I’m about ready to cut it all off myself.”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Damn. I’ll have to improvise.”

“You are _not_ improvising a haircut,” she scolds him. “I’ll lend you some money, and you can get it done by a professional.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun.” Mark finishes the last few bites of his meal and then slouches down in his chair. “It feels kind of weird, though, being able to do whatever I want. It’s been literal years since I’ve had any kind of freedom, between the kidnapping and the time travel coma and the _other_ kidnapping.” He gives a hollow laugh. “How fucked up is that?”

“Just take things one step at a time,” says Joan. “Remember that you’re in control now. You can take all the time you need to heal.”

“Yeah, I think the three months of DIY coma recovery took care of most of the healing--”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about, Mark.”

He scowls. The expression soon fades into the furrowed brow of worry rather than irritation. “Do you think Damien will be okay?” he asks. “I mean, on our way back he could barely do anything unless I told him to do it. What if that doesn’t wear off even when he’s not around me?”

“I don’t know,” Joan replies. As much as she finds karmic satisfaction in how Damien’s ability has been turned against him, the abnormal circumstances of the rebound cause her more concern than anything else. “Even after everything that’s happened, he is still my patient, and I have an obligation to help him if he wants to continue his sessions with me. But until then, I’ll be happy to not have to put up with him. And you shouldn’t concern yourself with him either way.”

“I kind of can’t, though,” says Mark. “Not concern myself with him, that is. I spent all that time with him, and he _made_ me care about him even when I didn’t want to. And then after I took over his ability I thought, well, good, I don’t have to care about him anymore, because no matter what sob stories he tries to sell me he’s still a colossal dick who kidnapped me. But he--he’s still in my head, even though he isn’t controlling me anymore. I think about whether he’s going to be okay on his own without his ability, and how much he probably hates me for taking his ability away from him, and… God, Joanie, it really fucking sucks.”

Joan recognizes the way that Mark talks about Damien from her own experiences with Wadsworth. Even before Sam had proposed the possibility that something romantic or sexual had happened between Mark and Damien, the thought had crossed Joan’s mind that Damien might have used his power to manipulate Mark in that way. She doubts it’s true, because all signs point to Damien not being interested in crossing that line, but that does not mean that Mark has not developed complicated feelings for him during their time together. She cannot offer him too much commiseration, however, without admitting that the woman who kept him as a prisoner for years occupies a similar stifling territory in her mind.

“I’m sorry,” is all she can say. “I can only imagine how difficult all of this has been for you. But for now, I think maintaining your distance from him is the best option.”

Mark sighs out a frustrated breath. “Yeah, I know.” He rises from his chair and gathers his dishes and trash. “But right now the only thing I’m interested in doing is plopping down in front of the TV and not moving for a few hours.”

“My Netflix account is all yours,” Joan says. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

As Mark settles himself on the couch, she remains at the kitchen table to try to get some work done, since Mark and Damien’s return had disrupted her planned agenda for the day. Some things between her and Mark never change, she muses to herself whenever his occasional comments break her focus. (“Netflix has original programming now?” he says in disbelief as he searches for something to watch. “And they release entire seasons at once? Man, I didn’t expect TV to change that much in five years.”) The only difference is that instead of distracting her from homework assignments he now distracts her from her patient notes and research about rebound effects on atypical abilities. Of course, she cannot get far into the latter without access to the AM’s files, and she does not want to call to request the relevant data when she is fairly certain that most of the information on that topic comes from their experiments on Mark.

His comments eventually grow less frequent until they die away completely, and upon closer inspection Joan discovers that he has fallen asleep on the couch. She considers letting him rest, but if he is going to sleep he may as well do it more comfortably.

“The guest bedroom is all set up for you if you’re ready to go to bed,” she says after gently rousing him awake.

Mark stretches his body across the length of the couch. “Nah, it’s still early. But maybe… maybe you can keep me company for a little while?”

“Of course,” she agrees as she sits down next to him. “What are we watching?”

“I’ve been catching up on the seasons of _Parks and Rec_ that I’ve missed.” A yawn interrupts his response. “I wanted something light and familiar. Unless you’d rather watch something different?”

“No. You’re completely in control here.”

After Mark has restarted the episode that he’d been sleeping through, they do not converse much more beyond a few words exchanged here and there. The silence carries the weight of the emotional distance that continues to separate them. After having spent so much time apart, she cannot expect them to easily slide back into how things used to be, as much as she longs for the days when their lives were far less complicated.

Later that night, hours after Joan has gone to bed, she wakes to the distinct sound of movement coming from the kitchen. After living alone for years, the unexpected noise of footsteps and cupboard doors startles her into alertness, and her heart pounds in panic as she fumbles for her glasses on the bedside table. It’s not until she’s halfway to her bedroom door while mentally running through every course of action that she can take against a possible intruder that she remembers Mark’s presence in her apartment. For a moment she considers going back to bed and leaving him to whatever late-night snack he is undoubtedly searching for, but an instinct of concern makes her open the door and follow the glow of switched-on lights into the kitchen.

“Mark?” she says upon seeing him looking through one of the cupboards as the microwave hums with activity.

He flinches in surprise at her presence. “Joanie! Jesus! I didn’t think you were still awake.” Then, upon noticing her tired eyes and tousled hair, he adds, “Oh, God. I woke you up, didn’t I? Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she assures him. “I just wanted to make sure you were…” She trails off, not wanting to sound too worried about him. She turns her attention toward the microwave and its timer that steadily counts down to zero. “What on earth are you microwaving at three in the morning?”

“I, um, I wanted some hot chocolate,” he says. “I saw you had some instant mix, and I didn’t want to mess around with the stove, so… microwave.” He reaches into the cupboard that he has recently opened and pulls out a mug. “Ah, finally found one. Man, I do _not_ understand your kitchen organization.”

“It makes complete sense,” Joan protests, momentarily forgetting her concern that has led her to check on him. “You’re just not used to it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbles Mark.

The microwave beeps. He retrieves the measuring cup filled with water, pours it into the mug, and stirs in a packet of instant hot chocolate mix. He takes a tiny sip of its contents before setting the mug on the counter and returning his attention to where Joan stands near the refrigerator. Silence falls between the two of them as the uncertainty of what to say overwhelms them yet again.

“I didn’t know you still had that photo,” Mark says finally, nodding to an old Polaroid stuck to the fridge with a magnet. It depicts the two of them as children, around twelve and seven years old, with Joan’s arm around Mark’s shoulders while he grins and gives her bunny ears. Her preteen handwriting labels the photo as “Joanie + Mark” in blue marker that has not faded even after two decades and the journey from their childhood home to college dorms to various apartments.

“It’s one of my favorite pictures of us,” Joan replies. “I’m not sure why. I’m pretty sure it was just you messing around with Dad’s old camera. But I feel like it really captures the essence of us as kids.”

Mark’s expression darkens at the brief mention of their father, but he does not say anything about the parents who rejected him. “Wow, we were so 90s,” he says instead. “Whatever happened to your middle school scrunchie collection, anyway?”

“Lost to the times, I’m afraid.”

Mark reaches for his mug and takes another sip. “Yeah, you’re a little more stylish now. But only a little.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Joan studies him closely, observing how his body language reveals what he does not speak aloud. There’s a tightly-wound tension in him despite the casual and relaxed exterior that he tries to present, and she sees it in the anxious tapping of his fingers against the side of the mug and the occasional sideways dart of his eyes as if he suspects that something is lurking in the shadows nearby. His actions suggest a sense of deep, on-edge paranoia, and Joan’s heart aches at the reminder of what he has endured during their time apart.

“So are we going to talk about why you’re awake in the kitchen in the middle of the night?” she asks.

“Nope,” he replies with swift evasion.

“Mark,” she says reprovingly.

“You’re not my therapist, remember? It’d kind of be a conflict of interest to give therapy to your own brother.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me. I’m willing to give you all the space you need, but--”

Mark sighs in frustration. “It’s just regular old insomnia, okay? I just need to get used to sleeping here. When it’s been five years since I last felt safe somewhere, it’s going to take a little while to adjust.”

“Do you feel safe here?” Joan asks, unsure if she wants to know the answer. As much as she wants to be a safe place for him, the extent of his trauma makes her doubt her capabilities. If he were a patient, someone whom she could view objectively, maybe she would have an easier time, but he is right in that she cannot treat him like an average person who walks into her office. All she can do is be his sister who has done questionable actions for his sake.

“You’re not experimenting on me, manipulating me, or making me question my sense of reality. So I guess that counts for something.” Mark takes another drink. After he has swallowed, he adds, “Shit, I don’t know, Joanie. You know how happy I am to finally see you again. But everything is just… It’s a lot. And for now, I just need to have a hot drink and not have you worrying about me.”

“You know that’s never going to happen,” says Joan. “The last part, I mean.”

“I know. But I can still say it anyway.” He waves off her continued look of concern. “Seriously. Go back to sleep. I’ll still be here in the morning, I promise.”

After years of not knowing if or when she will see him again, the certainty in his words comforts her. “Okay,” she replies. She steps forward to hug him, and he returns the embrace. “You try to get some rest too.”

He makes a non-committal noise as he lets go of her. “Night, Joanie.”

She returns to her room and settles herself into bed, and despite Mark’s assurance that she does not need to worry about him, she lies awake on the edge of sleep for a long time afterward.


	11. Chapter 11

Between the looming threats of Wadsworth and Damien on either side of her, Joan knows it won’t be long before everything comes crashing down.

True to her word, Wadsworth shows no interest in dragging Mark back to the AM, but what Joan does not expect is for her to back off entirely from their usual communication. It begins even before Mark’s return, when Wadsworth calls to inform her that a last-minute business trip has come up and she will have to postpone their next meeting. As much as Joan raises her eyebrows at the sudden cancellation when all previous signs point to Wadsworth specifically scheduling her busy life around their usual Friday afternoon meetings, she is secretly relieved to have a break. When she does not receive a follow-up call to reschedule, her relief transforms into uneasiness about Wadsworth’s motivations. Is she waiting for her to reach out, knowing that even after weeks of radio silence Joan will crawl back to her eventually? The temptation is certainly there, thanks to her insatiable need to gain insight into Wadsworth’s next move, but every time that Joan considers picking up the phone or walking into the AM, her spiteful pettiness refuses to give Wadsworth what she wants,

Besides, she now has Damien as a resurfaced headache to deal with when he reluctantly resumes his sessions soon after his and Mark’s return. Dealing with a much more docile version of him is a refreshing change of pace, but Joan still has a professional duty to help him navigate his new reality despite her selfish desire to revel in his powerlessness. Each session leaves her with the question of when he will inevitably regain command of his ability--until one day when she feels the familiar pull of his desires entering her mind, and she loses the safety net that she has clung to.

It’s a week’s worth of slow-burn anxiety before the chaos begins: Damien forcing Wadsworth’s contact information out of Adam and meeting with her, Wadsworth breaking her communications freeze-out with an almost panicked demand of “Joan, where is my nephew?”, and everyone lying low at Sam’s secret safe house until Damien finds his way there as well. Joan has been foolish to think that he wouldn’t do everything in his power to find them, and maybe none of it would have happened if she hadn’t sent Chloe to get some files from her office, or if Frank hadn’t followed her and fallen prey to Damien’s ability. But it’s too late to think about the what-ifs. Nothing can change what has happened, and now she has to pick up the pieces and figure out what to do next.

Joan returns home that evening emotionally drained after the day’s events, exhausted from trying to maintain a sense of calm after witnessing Caleb beat Damien within an inch of his life and breaking down at the crushing truth of how much of a monster Wadsworth had been to Mark. She had never thought that the pedestal that she’d once placed her on would be able to crumble more than it already has, and yet here she is, still reeling after having learned about the very specific threats to her safety that Wadsworth had made to keep Mark cooperative. No matter how many times Wadsworth has insisted otherwise, Joan now sees her role in her game more clearly than ever. She has been nothing more than a key and a bargaining chip, and she cannot believe that Wadsworth _ever_ cared about her when she had put Mark through such deep emotional torture.

When Joan enters her apartment, she expects to find it empty, but instead she discovers Mark lying on the couch watching TV with a bottle of scotch in front of him. At the sound of her return, he lifts his head from the pillow and pours himself another glass.

“Have you been here the whole time?” she asks him. “I thought you were going back to Sam’s apartment while we…” She trails off there, not wanting to bring up the point of contention of how he’d been outvoted six to one in favor of taking Damien to the AM for treatment.

“Yeah, well. She doesn’t have any alcohol at her place.” Mark drinks from his glass. Joan is sure that his answer is a mere deflection, but she isn’t going to complain about him coming here rather than avoiding the tension between them. “Relax, Joanie,” he adds upon seeing the frown in her expression. “This is only my second glass. I’m not trying to drink away the pain.”

“I was actually thinking about how I could use a drink too,” Joan says. “It’s certainly been a day.”

Mark lets out a bitter scoff of a laugh. “Yeah, that’s a mild way of putting it.”

Joan retrieves a glass from the kitchen and returns to the living room to fill it. She sits down on the couch and exhales a breath after swallowing her first sip of scotch, longing to somehow fill the silence now that Mark has turned off the TV. No words feel adequate enough for her, and instead she must face the crushing reminder of how much remains unspoken between them.

“Did Caleb and Adam get home okay?” asks Mark. “You gave them a ride back to Caleb’s house, right?”

“Yes. Although Caleb’s parents _did_ end up throwing me out of their house before I had much time to explain what happened.” Joan takes another drink. “Honestly, I don’t blame them. Their son gets dropped off covered in blood by his therapist and then they find out that he physically assaulted someone who threatened his boyfriend’s safety… I’m not sure there’s _any_ good way to spin that.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a clusterfuck when you put it all out there, isn’t it?” Mark sits up and settles himself into a comfortable position as he reaches for his glass. “So, how was the AM?” A note of false cheerfulness enters his voice at the change of topic. “Did they welcome Damien with open arms?”

“Mark, I--” Joan breaks off, unsure of how to proceed when the wound of his own time at the AM is so raw and bleeding.

“Look, I know it wasn’t the outcome I wanted, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ask about how it went.”

“Sam and I only made sure that he got into the hands of someone who can ensure that he obtains the medical care he needs,” Joan replies. “I honestly don’t know what happened from there.”

“Did you see Wadsworth?”

“No. I suppose that’s for the best, considering--”

“Considering how you now know about everything she did to me?” Mark interrupts her, speaking with the bluntness that Joan expects from him at the delicate path their conversation has taken.

“Considering everything that’s happened over the past two days,” she says. “But I expect it will only be a matter of time before she contacts me again.”

Mark gives another humorless breath of laughter. “Yeah, I’m sure as far as she’s concerned, she still wants the two of you to be BFFs or whatever.”

Joan takes another drink, and she savors the taste of scotch on her tongue as she carefully considers what to say next. The confession tumbles out of her mouth before she makes the conscious decision to say it, shattering her intentions of not escalating an already delicate situation.

“I was sleeping with her.”

Mark’s face twists into a combination of shock and horror. “What?”

“I didn’t want to say it in front of everyone at the safe house. But for the sake of full honesty and disclosure: Ellie and I weren’t just friends during my time with the AM. We were sleeping together.”

At first, Mark does not say anything. The silence is worse than an immediate angry outburst, leaving Joan to face the ticking time bomb that counts down to his inevitable explosive reaction. She can almost see the gears turning in his head as he runs through all of the consequences of her words, with everything falling into place now that he knows another piece of the puzzle.

“Fuck,” he says eventually. He rises to his feet and paces a few angry steps in front of the couch before rounding on her. “ _Fuck_.”

“I know,” she replies. “I’m not proud of it now, but back then I was so drawn in by her, and we had this attraction between us--”

“Ugh, no, I don’t need to hear about how hot you were for her.” Mark waves off her words as if he is physically swatting them away. “I didn’t even know you were into women. You could’ve shared that earlier, considering how you were the first person I came out to. It would have been nice to know that I’m not the only non-straight one in the family.”

“Well, to be fair, I wasn’t really aware of it until I met her,” says Joan. “It wasn’t something I gave much thought to before then.”

“Oh, great. So not only did you have a thing for her, she was your big awakening. I would say that your taste in women is just as bad as your taste in men, but… Jesus Christ, Joanie, there’s bad taste in women and then there’s _her_.” Mark huffs out a breath of frustration. “How long did it go on for? The whole time you were with the AM?”

“For the last few years that I was there, after she’d taken an interest in my work. It, um…” Joan hesitates, fully aware of how suspicious the timing is. “It started a month or two before you were taken.”

“God. So she would fuck you and then go off and run her twisted experiments on me. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more fucked up.” Underneath the matter-of-fact facade of Mark’s words, true revulsion strains beneath the surface. He sits down on the couch, leaning forward and running a hand through his hair in an agitated motion. “Next thing I know, you’re going to say that you were in love with her.”

Joan could easily lie and tell him that everything was strictly physical and she had never entertained the thought of deeper emotions, but after so many years of secrets she owes him complete honesty no matter how much it hurts. “Maybe I thought I was once, but… Mark, you have to understand that at the time I had no idea what she was doing to you.” Her throat tightens at the recent memory of learning just how deeply his time at the AM has traumatized him. “And anything I felt for her vanished the moment I saw you in that cell and realized that she had been keeping you right under my nose the whole time. I can’t tell you how much it _sickens_ me to think about how I let her touch me with the same hands that did such terrible things to you.”

Mark lifts his head to look at her. “That doesn’t change anything. She’s a _monster_ , and you were in bed with her. And who knows what the two of you did when you had those meetings with her after you got me out. I know she’s not one to give up on something she wants.”

“She certainly tried her best to go back to how things used to be between us,” Joan admits. “But our… _encounters_ definitely had a different tone to them after I’d seen her true colors.”

“So you were hate-fucking her,” says Mark.

“It never went _that_ far. I’m sure you don’t want to hear all of the sordid details--”

“No, I want to know. I shared everything earlier today, and now it’s your turn.”

Joan sighs. “Fine. We made out in her office during one of our meetings. Is that enough for you?” Reading the continued look of horror and disbelief on his face, she adds, “And that was months ago. I haven’t even seen her since September, and since you’ve been back I’d had zero contact with her until she called me today demanding to know where Adam was.” Had that really been just earlier today? This day has stretched onward like a never-ending nightmare. “She’s clearly decided that directly pursuing me is no longer worthwhile.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Mark mutters. “How much do you have to hate yourself to go back to her even after everything she did?”

The tenuous hold that Joan has on her emotions snaps. “Oh, like you’re one to judge me for having feelings for someone who’s done terrible things. What about you and Damien?”

Mark narrows his eyes. “That’s--that’s _completely_ different. Number one,” he holds up one finger, “I never slept with him. I never did _anything_ with him. Number two,” he holds up a second finger, “last time I checked, no matter how charming and charismatic you think Wadsworth is, she doesn’t have a superpower that makes people do whatever she wants. You had the complete free will to step away from her the moment things went south. I never had that with Damien until it was too late.”

“So you should understand how difficult it is to walk away from a toxic person,” Joan retorts. “How they keep trying to pull you in by convincing you that the old times weren’t so bad and you should give them another chance. I thought maybe, just maybe, you’d have a little bit of sympathy.”

“Yeah, well, you’re wrong. Because I will _never_ have sympathy for you for being so taken in by the woman who fucked me up so badly that I don’t even know how to live my life anymore. And honestly, it _hurts_ that you have to throw everything that’s happened with Damien in my face to try to make your point. I never thought you’d stoop that low.”

He looks so wounded, as if Joan’s words have physically punched him in the stomach. Guilt wells within her at his pain, like it always does when she realizes that she has hurt him, her little brother who has always meant the world to her. The gulf between them gapes wider than ever, and with her recent confession she feels like the flimsy bridge that she has tried to construct has crumbled, destroying her attempts to reach him.

“You’re right,” she replies. “I’m sorry. Bringing up Damien was completely out of line. And I didn’t tell you about all of this to hurt you. You were so honest with me back at the safe house, and I--” Her voice trembles. “I want you to trust me, Mark. Even if it means that I have to tell you about the things I’m not proud of.”

“I _do_ want to trust you,” says Mark. “But you--God, Joan, you make it really fucking hard to do that sometimes.”

“I know.” She hates how quiet and broken the two words sound as they leave her mouth. She sniffles against the surge of emotions within her that threatens to spill forth, determined not to break down in front of him again.

Mark rises from the couch with no further words to her and walks toward the door. She watches helplessly as he puts on his coat and slides his feet into his shoes without taking the time to untie them.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Back to Sam’s place. I need some space for a little while.” He closes his hand around the door handle and then turns to face her. “I’ll see you later.”

“Mark--” Joan begins. The door has already closed behind him before she can say anything else, and so his name hangs in the air with no follow-up.

She reaches for her glass of scotch and drinks the remainder of its contents in one swallow. The burn in her throat matches the sting of unshed tears in her eyes, and it’s not long until everything that has built up inside her pours out like a dam that has broken. Her tears flow freely, quiet sobs escaping from her as the day’s events threaten to swallow her up with fear and guilt. She is supposed to keep everyone safe, her family and her friends and her patients, and today she has failed that objective in every respect. Now she is lost in the minefield of how to deal with the fallout with no clear picture of how to proceed, all because she was unable to put a stop to everything before it spun out of control.

But she cannot feel sorry for herself for long. She may have no idea what to do next, but she cannot allow herself to crumble. The only path is forward, and no matter how complicated that path is, she has sacrificed too much to not see it through until the end.

 

* * *

 

Joan sleeps restlessly that night, lying awake for hours while her thoughts refuse to give her a moment of peace. After finally managing to doze off for a few hours, the blare of her usual morning alarm jolts her out of light slumber. She groans and turns off the alarm before doing something she rarely does: attempting to sleep in. Going back to sleep turns out to be a futile endeavor, however, and so she eventually gives up and rises to face a new day.

Saturdays are usually Joan’s catch-up day for her work, when she reviews her audio and written notes and rarely sees any patients apart from emergency sessions that cannot wait until her regular hours. Today is no exception despite the recent chaos, and so she showers, eats a quick breakfast, and goes to her office. She has not been here since yesterday, and it's like returning to the scene of a crime when she sees the displaced lamp that Damien had used to knock Chloe unconscious. A familiar sense of guilt overwhelms her, reminding her that it’s entirely her fault that multiple people whom she cares about have come to harm through Damien.

She settles herself at her desk and begins organizing her notes from this week’s patients. It’s strange to think about how less than a year ago all of her sessions were only about helping her patients live with their abilities and addressing their fears and concerns like a good therapist should. Her other patients are lucky, she supposes, that they never got caught up in the mess of the AM and Damien due to either her own actions or coincidence. Maybe now that Damien is at the AM, thus providing Wadsworth with a new toy when she inevitably gets her hands on him, everything will go back to as normal as it can be for her--although she cannot shake the feeling that she is merely in the eye of the hurricane right now.

Her cell phone rings about half an hour later, and for one optimistic second she hopes to see Mark’s name on the screen, ready to talk everything out after the ugly words they’d exchanged last night. Instead she sees that Sam is calling her, which she supposes is the next best thing. Joan is not sure how much Mark has told her, but talking to a friend about what has happened is probably a good idea even if Sam is not entirely impartial when it comes to Mark.

“Sorry, am I interrupting anything?” Sam asks after Joan has answered the phone. “I know you sometimes work on Saturdays, and--”

“It’s fine, Sam,” says Joan. “I’m at the office right now, but honestly I’m not sure how productive I’ll be. I didn’t exactly sleep well last night.”

“Yeah, you and me both. Although I hardly ever sleep well, so I’m not sure whether that counts.” Sam gives a nervous laugh before her voice turns to concern. “Are you okay after everything that happened yesterday?”

“I should be asking you the same thing,” Joan replies, unable to shake the habit of playing the part of the therapist even though Sam stopped being her patient months ago. “I know yesterday was… stressful, to put it lightly. Have you been on any trips since I saw you last night?”

“No,” Sam replies. “Which is really surprising. I seriously thought the moment I got back home and everything started fully sinking in, I’d freak out and be gone. But I’m still here. Still solid.”

“That’s good,” says Joan. “You’re a lot stronger than you think, Sam. A lot of other people would have crumbled after everything that happened.”

“Yeah, that’s what Mark said.”

“Is he still at your apartment?” Joan asks, deciding to rip the metaphorical Band-Aid off the topic that she knows she should address.

“Um, yeah. He’s been here since last night.” Sam hesitates, as if she is uncertain of whether she should say more on the matter. “He… he said the two of you had a fight, or something?”

“Something like that,” Joan says. She keeps the details vague for now, although she is sure that everything will come spilling out sooner or later. “Did he tell you what it was about?”

“No. I got the sense he didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t ask. I think he’s pretty upset about whatever it is, though. Maybe you should talk to him--”

“No,” Joan interrupts her. “No, that’s caused enough trouble between us. I just wanted to be honest with him about certain things that happened during my time with the AM, but I should have known that some parts of the truth hurt too much.”

“I suppose it’s kind of my fault, isn’t it?” Sam says. “I was the one who told him that he needed to talk to you about everything that happened. If I had known it would cause so much pain for the two of you--”

“No, Sam, it isn’t your fault,” Joan assures her. “You’re right in that there was a lot between Mark and me that needed to come out, and sharing those things was never going to be easy. I just wish it had gone better, that’s all. Although,” she adds with a note of bitterness, “I suppose there’s no such thing as ‘better’ where Wadsworth is concerned.”

“Finding out what she did to Mark hurt, didn’t it?” At the silence of confirmation that she receives, Sam adds, “I’m so sorry, Joan. It must have been terrible to hear about all of the things she did to Mark while you thought she was your friend. I can’t even imagine what that feels like.”

“Yes, it’s… It’s not the best feeling.” Joan exhales a deep breath to prepare herself for the prospect of confessing one of her worst secrets for the second time in twenty-four hours. “That’s what Mark and I argued about, actually. There are some things about my relationship with Ellie that nobody else knew about until last night. I wanted to be honest with him and give him the whole picture, but… Well, I don’t blame him for getting angry. I’m not exactly happy about some of the things I’ve done, either.”

“Okay, what the hell was going on between you and her?” Sam asks. “I know she was your boss and you admired her a lot, but the way you talk about her sometimes… I don’t know, it’s like you have this weird love/hate relationship with her.”

“You’re not that far off, actually,” Joan admits. She rises from her chair and paces a few steps in front of her desk, overcome with restlessness at the turn their conversation has taken. “I suppose now that Mark knows, there’s no point in hiding it from you. The truth is that Ellie and I were much closer than friends during my last few years at the AM. I… Well, I was sleeping with her.”

“Oh.” The single syllable comes through the phone’s speaker in a mix of surprise and confusion. Joan does not blame Sam for her reaction, but each second that passes by without a longer response worries her further.

“Sam?” she inquires into the silence. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s just--that wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. And I definitely understand why Mark’s so upset now.”

“Indeed,” Joan murmurs. “Are _you_ upset with me?” she then asks, suddenly uncertain.

“I mean, obviously I’m not thrilled that you were involved with a person who hurt someone I care about,” says Sam. “But… I don’t know. I guess I’m still processing everything. Does anyone else know about this, other than me and Mark?”

“Not that I know of. I’m sure if Chloe has picked up anything in my thoughts, she would have said something about it. I try to keep those thoughts well-guarded when I’m around her, for obvious reasons.”

“Yeah. Chloe definitely wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about something like this. Especially because she was the one who put it together that Wadsworth is Adam’s aunt.” There’s another pause on the other end of the phone before Sam continues on. “So what does this mean? You and Wadsworth were dating? She was your girlfriend, or whatever?”

“I’m not really sure what we were, to be honest,” says Joan. “It was never something that we defined, and I didn’t object to that for a variety of reasons. At the time it seemed simpler to not put an official label on what existed between us, as strange as that sounds. The important thing is that there was a physical aspect to our relationship in addition to a _very_ complicated emotional one.”

“And just to be clear, you don’t feel anything toward her now, right?” Sam asks. “This was all in the past?”

“For all intents and purposes, yes. We certainly won’t be able to go back to how things were between us, although I’m sure she’d tell you differently. But…” Joan halts the steps that she has been pacing in front of her desk and stares out the window, gazing through the blinds but not quite seeing what lies outside. “She’s a very magnetic person, and it’s difficult to break free once she has a hold on you. I’ve learned that the hard way over these past few months.”

“Jesus,” Sam murmurs. “It sounds like Mark isn’t the only one who she messed up.”

“Yes, I suppose you could say that.” Joan returns to her chair and sits down. She leaves unspoken the extent of Wadsworth’s damage to her, the self-doubt that has followed her for years whenever she has tried to trust someone. “There are many ways to hurt a person without kidnapping and experimenting on them.”

Sam makes a quiet noise of agreement. “You know, you never answered my question at the beginning of our call.”

“What question?”

“Whether you’re okay.”

A heavy pause hangs between them. Joan takes off her glasses and runs a hand down the length of her face. The weight of yesterday’s events is almost too much for her to bear, and even though her mind tells her that she needs to bury it and not show her cracking exterior, her heart tells her that she should not hide behind the pretense that everything is fine.

“No, Sam,” she replies. “I’m not okay.”

“I’m sorry.” The apology is one of condolence rather than culpability. “If there’s anything I can do--”

“You’ve done enough,” Joan assures her. “I don’t need you worrying about me. Just… be there for Mark, will you? In the ways that I can’t.”

“I’ll try,” says Sam. “You--The two of you will be okay, won’t you?”

“I’d like to think so. But…” Joan hesitates, unable to shake the feeling that the trust between her and Mark has broken beyond repair. It’s a foolish thought, because she knows how much he _wants_ to trust her, but the fear twists its way through her mind regardless. “Well, time will tell, I suppose.”

“Yeah.” On the other end of the phone, Joan hears the faint clatter of dishes that must be coming from her kitchen. “Sorry, I should probably go. I think Mark’s making breakfast. Or brunch. Something like that. I’ll talk to you soon?”

“Of course. Take care, Sam.”

“You too.”

Joan sets down her phone and lets out a long exhale. She leans back in her chair and scrubs her hands across her face again, rubbing her fingers against her closed eyes. When she opens her eyes and puts her glasses back on, the usual scenery of her office reminds her that there is work to be done. Yesterday’s problems are too big for her to solve alone, and so for now she must focus on what she _can_ do: help those who have not been caught up in this mess.

She starts by finding this week’s patient files that have been uploaded from her audio recorder to her computer. She soon falls into the rhythm of familiar voices as she reviews her notes and consults the relevant audio from each session. No matter how deeply she buries herself in her work, however, she cannot block out the images that haunt her: Damien’s bloodied and broken body, Caleb’s sobs of fear and regret at what he has done to Damien, and, most of all, the pain and anger on Mark’s face as he walks away from her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a few pieces of dialogue adapted from Episode 51.

Joan’s life is oddly quiet in the weeks that follow, now that Damien is under the AM’s care and Wadsworth continues to keep her distance. She is not sure whether to trust the quieter days as autumn turns to winter, because prior experiences have taught her to always expect something lurking in the shadows. She already has a vague sense of unease about what will happen when or if Damien is released from the AM, which only adds to her worries about the ever-widening distance between her and Mark. The two of them maintain a sense of civility, even pleasantness, in the weeks and months that follow that day in November, but they can only pretend for so long that nothing has changed. No amount of smiles and laughter can mask how much Mark is hurting after the painful secrets that both of them have revealed.

The facade of normalcy begins to unravel when the AM turns Damien loose at the start of the new year. From there, it only takes a few more weeks for him to resurface via one of Joan’s previously uninvolved patients. She doesn’t fault Rose for establishing contact with Damien after meeting him at the AM, especially because he is far less of a threat while he remains powerless. She only wishes that yet another one of patients didn’t have to become caught up in this disaster, because she needs to be _gaining_ patients to keep her practice afloat, not losing them. Although the unofficial “atypical support group” that has formed around her and her former patients is a benefit in many ways, adding another member to that circle only throws her dwindling clientele into a sharper light.

The verdict, when they all gather to discuss what to do about Damien’s return into their lives, is to strongly encourage him to leave the city and start a new life elsewhere. Joan is a little skeptical of how the duty has fallen to Mark to carry out the task, but the fact that Mark seems to be the only person with whom Damien has formed anything resembling a personal connection makes him the best person for the job. When Mark shows up at her office the very next day to ask for Damien’s current address so he can immediately take care of the act of closure, she is relieved that he is not prolonging the task, and perhaps the even greater relief is the promise that after everything is settled with Damien, she and him will at last sit down and talk about the last three months over the nostalgia of unhealthy Chinese food.

That evening, after giving Joan the confirmation that everything is finished with Damien, Mark is unusually quiet as the two of them eat their way through the contents of the takeout containers. Joan continues to give him the same space that she has always allowed him, but she hates to see him retreat back into himself after reckoning with a piece of his trauma. After months of tiptoeing around the discussion of their feelings, she now faces the dilemma of how to push him into that conversation without driving him further away.

After they have finished their meal, Mark breaks open a fortune cookie from the handful tossed in with their food order. “Today it’s up to you to create the peacefulness that you long for,” he reads. “Wow, how fucking apropos.”

“Do you…” Joan hesitates, wanting to be as gentle as possible in broaching the subject. “Do you feel like you’ve found peace after telling Damien to leave?”

“I should, right?” he says after swallowing the first half of the fortune cookie. “I mean, I’m finally rid of him. I told him that I’m not interested in forgiving what he did, and now I don’t have to see him again. That should be enough, shouldn’t it?”

“It’s not about how you _should_ feel,” Joan points out. “Sometimes our feelings don’t always line up with our expectations, and that’s okay. There’s no right or wrong way to process a big step forward like what you’ve done today.”

“Yeah, thanks for the therapy pep talk.” Mark eats the rest of the fortune cookie and then lets out a sigh. “I don’t know, it’s like… I’ve been wanting closure with him for months, but now that I have it, I keep wondering if it’s really over. Maybe his power will come back, and he’ll come crawling back here and the whole thing will start again. It wouldn’t be the first time we thought we were done with him before he showed up again like a bad song you can’t get out of your head.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see,” Joan replies, knowing that her words are nothing but an empty platitude. “But continuing to feel the shadow of a person even after distancing yourself from them is a common experience.”

Mark places his fortune cookie wrapper into the empty container of dumplings and tosses it toward the trash can in the kitchen. It lands several inches short, earning him a frown of disapproval from Joan. He gives an innocent shrug at her judgment and does not move to pick it up.

“It’s like that for you and Wadsworth, isn’t it?” he says eventually.

Joan raises her eyebrows at his mention of Wadsworth after months of determinedly not bringing up the woman partially responsible for the rift between them. “What do you mean?”

“When we had that fight after The Incident, you said that I should understand what you’ve gone through with Wadsworth because of everything with Damien.” Mark refers to that fateful day in November like everyone else in their group does--capital T, capital I, in an emphasis that requires no further explanation. “You still feel her shadow, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Joan admits. She rises from the table and retrieves the takeout container that has not reached the trash can. After properly disposing of it, she remains facing away from Mark, reluctant to look him in the eye as they finally discuss the topic that they have avoided for too long.

“Have you heard from her at all since November?” he asks.

Joan shakes her head. “No, she’s been quiet. At least when it comes to dealing with me.”

“You wish you could have the same closure with her that I now have with Damien.”

Joan turns around to face him. “Is there a telepath in the vicinity that I don’t know about?”

“No, I guess I just know you too well. But I’m right, aren’t I?”

She considers her words carefully, not wanting to say something wrong now that they have gained so much momentum. “Yes,” she replies finally. “And for a while I felt like I _did_ have closure with her after I left the AM’s direct employment. I made it clear that I wasn’t going to forgive her for what she’d done, and I thought that would be enough. But I’ve just been carrying her betrayal with me this whole time, and even before we came back into contact last summer she’s always been with me in one way or another.” She gives a brief, bitter laugh. “I don’t think I can call that closure in any sense of the word.”

Mark rises from his seat at the table and walks toward her. They stand facing each other, and the emotional distance between them is wider than ever despite their physical proximity. “See, and that’s what I’m afraid is going to happen,” he says. “How long am I going to carry the weight what he did? How much more time am I going to waste wondering about why I ever thought I cared about him? And I don’t want to hear your therapist-speak,” he adds before Joan can respond. “I want you to talk to me as my sister.”

She regards the few feet that separate them. It should be easy for her to reach out and touch his arm or shoulder in reassurance, but she cannot bring herself to do so. Instead, the only thing she can offer him is her uncertainty.

“Oh my God, do you really not know how to do that anymore?” he asks at her lack of an immediate response. “Just be my sister? Is that part of why things have been so weird for us since I came back? Because you can’t snap out of therapist mode for five seconds?”

“No, of course not.” The hostility in his voice stabs at Joan’s heart. “I just… I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know to say. Other than that I’m here for you.”

Mark lets out a quiet sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. When he speaks, however, his voice has lost most of its irritated edge. “You know, when we were younger I used to think that you had all the answers,” he replies. “I guess that’s part of growing up, huh? Realizing that your big sister can’t always fix everything.”

Joan glances at the old photograph of her and Mark on the refrigerator. Their smiling younger selves look back at her, unaware of everything that will put a strain on their relationship as adults. Twelve-year-old Joan would be heartbroken to learn that Mark has spent years grappling with whether he can trust her, and so she owes it to her preteen self to continue to reassemble the broken pieces of their relationship and be better for him.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

Mark frowns. “You’re gonna have to be more specific about that one, Joanie.”

“I mean that you’re right. I haven’t been the best sister to you. I’ve kept so many secrets from you, even before you went missing, and all it’s done is drive us further apart. I try my best to do everything I can for you, but sometimes I feel like it will never be enough.”

“Enough for what?”

Joan wants to say “To make you not broken,” or “To make you whole,” but those are not productive statements. No matter what he has endured, he will always be a full person who is not worth less because of his trauma. “Enough for me to know that I haven’t failed you,” she says instead.

Mark reaches out to touch her arm, finally bridging the distance between them. “You could never fail me, Joanie,” he assures her. “Yeah, I’m still super pissed that you didn’t tell me about your work with the AM and that you and Wadsworth were together. But I’m still _here_. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be locked away at the AM with my mind trapped in the past. And I don’t think I’ve been able to stand in front of Damien today and not get sucked back into his bullshit if it weren’t for you, either. That won’t change no matter how mad at you I get.”

Joan looks into his eyes that are so similar to her own. Sometimes she sees glimmers of his old charm and joy in them, but right now there’s something painfully earnest in his gaze. “I don’t blame you for being angry, you know,” she says. “I’m just as angry with myself for some of the mistakes I’ve made.”

“I know.” When Joan raises her eyebrows at his confident assessment of her innermost feelings, he adds, “Part-time empath, remember? It’s easy to get overwhelmed by everyone’s emotions when I’m around Caleb, but I can always tell which ones are yours.”

“I’m not sure whether that’s comforting or not.”

Mark cracks a brief smile, but the expression soon fades. “And besides, it’s not like I’ve been the best version of myself lately, either,” he says. “You and Sam keep getting on me about my drinking, and how I’m not addressing my trauma or whatever, and… Well, I know I can be kind of awful to you sometimes. Like yeah, we’ve established that you’ve hurt me with all of your secrets. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t hurt you too.”

“My God, self-flagellation really is the Bryant family sport,” Joan murmurs to herself, remembering what Sam had said at the safe house when they had both blamed themselves for the situation with Damien escalating the way it did.

“Self-flagellation and the passive-aggressive freeze-out.” A trace of Mark’s usual humor enters his voice before he reverts to seriousness. “Look, I know we both have a lot to apologize for. But I guess I should start with saying that I’m sorry for everything that happened back in November. For making you cry in front of everyone at the safe house, and for a lot of the things I said during our fight.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “Everyone’s emotions were running high that day. And besides, it’s not like it was the first time you’ve made me cry.”

“Yeah, but this is different from when we were kids. And I feel like it’s not exactly good for morale to see your current or former therapist break down.”

“There’s nothing wrong with showing emotion,” she reminds him. “I shouldn’t be exempt from that just because of my job. Although,” she admits in an afterthought, “I should probably take my own advice on that front a lot more often.”

Mark tries to laugh, but the sound comes out choked. His face scrunches up, as if he is trying to hold himself together while teetering on the brink of the emotions that he holds inside him. He wipes his eyes and sniffles loudly in a poor attempt to push back against his tears.

“Mark?” Joan says hesitantly.

He sniffles again, but he cannot stop his tears from falling. In an instant Joan has her arms around him in a hug. He has been taller than her since his early teens, but he crumples against her as if he is much smaller, like he did when they were children and he would seek comfort for a skinned knee or a bad nightmare. She rubs his back soothingly as he trembles with sobs, now that her words have given him permission to weep openly in an expression of the everything that he has held back for too long. She suspects that this outpouring is not necessarily out of sadness, but rather a catharsis as he releases everything that has built up inside him.

“It’ll be okay,” she assures him. “It’ll be okay.”

Eventually, Mark pulls away from her. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes red and his face blotchy. “Ugh, sorry for crying on you,” he says. “Not gonna lie, that felt kind of good, though.”

“It usually does, yes.” Joan squeezes his shoulder before letting go of him. “I’ll clean up in here. You can go find a movie for us to watch.”

“I don’t think Netflix has a category for ‘I just told the guy who kidnapped me, manipulated me, and threatened our overall safety to get the fuck out of my life.’ But I’m sure I’ll find something.”

He turns on the faucet at the sink and splashes some water onto his face. As he walks away, he stops at the partial wall that divides the kitchen from the more open area of the living room.

“Joanie?” he says, resting one hand against the wall as he turns to face her.

“Hmm?”

Whatever he intends to say hangs unspoken in the air between them. Joan waits as he searches for the right words, and in the end all he offers is “Thanks for being here with me tonight.”

“You’re welcome,” she replies. And then, in a quieter repetition: “You’re welcome.”

 

* * *

 

Joan has long ago come to the conclusion that every time her office door opens unexpectedly with no knock of courtesy, something is about to go wrong. When it happens on one March afternoon, her first instinct is that Damien is about to stride into the office, defying Mark’s act of closure and showing up with his ability miraculously restored for another round of his games. Instead, she receives an arguably worse alternative in the form of Wadsworth entering her territory for the first time since Joan’s departure from the AM.

From the moment that she walks in, Joan senses something different about her. Usually Wadsworth responds to her stiff, curt pleasantries with exasperation, rolling her eyes at how Joan cannot spare some of the warmth that once existed between them. This time, however, she merely requests permission to sit down in a soft tone that Joan has not heard from her in years, not since the quiet words that they used to share between tender embraces. It’s an odd reversal of power to see Wadsworth on the same couch where all of her patients sit, especially when she listens to her talk about an emotion that she would never expect Wadsworth to feel: the oppressive weight of self-doubt.

“I’ve been driving along and feel like I just looked up for the first time in years,” Wadsworth says, continuing with the metaphor of highway hypnosis that she has used to explain the uncertainty that has shaken her usual arrogant confidence.

“To find yourself in your driveway?” Joan asks.

“No. I’m not sure where I am.”

The words carry a sense of vulnerability that sounds almost unnatural coming out of her mouth. Joan’s own doubt flows through her at the strangeness of Wadsworth tearing herself open to reveal a side of her that Joan has never seen. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone has walked into her office wearing a mask of insecurities, only to reveal upon luring her in that it has been nothing but a ruse. Wadsworth has caught her off guard too many times for her to fall for that trick, no matter how genuine her doubts appear.

It turns out, of course, that Joan is wise not to lower her defenses. Their conversation soon turns toward Wadsworth’s work, and Joan’s curiosity leads her to a question that she has pondered for months: how Wadsworth has become immune to most classes of atypicals. She already has a theory that she desperately wishes to be false, but she cannot sit in Wadsworth’s company without knowing the truth--which, with worrying predictability, turns out to be exactly what she fears. Wadsworth has achieved the seemingly impossible feat of immunity through the illegal acquisition and application of Mark’s DNA.

“You need to leave,” Joan says as she stands face to face with Wadsworth, trembling in fury at how she has the gall to try to reforge a relationship between them after what she has revealed. “ _Now_.”

“Very well.” Wadsworth’s face shows no hint of disappointment. She walks toward the door and turns back to face Joan before opening it. “I hope you think about everything I’ve said, Joan. It’s not too late for us.”

Joan does not respond. After the door closes with Wadsworth’s departure, she collapses against the cushions of her chair in the mental exhaustion that often comes with trying to figure out Wadsworth’s game. She could spend hours trying to decode the meaning behind this turn of events, but what she truly needs is to talk to someone about her suspicions before her thoughts completely overwhelm her. She therefore returns to her desk and picks up the phone, hoping that Sam does not mind that part of their friendship has come to entail listening to her vent about Wadsworth.

“Hey, Joan,” Sam says upon answering her phone. “What’s up?”

“Is it okay if I stop by on my way home from work?” Joan asks. “I’ve been going through some of my old research, and I found some files that might be useful for our project. I thought you might want to take a look at them when you have the time.” Then, dropping the pretense of her visit, she adds, “And maybe we can have some tea and chat?”

“Of course,” Sam replies. “You know you’re always welcome here. Should I expect you sometime after five?”

“Maybe a little earlier. I’m pretty much done for the day, I just have a couple more things to tie up. I’ll see you soon, Sam.”

“You too.”

After their call has ended, Joan searches for the files that she has described to Sam, pulling them out of cabinets and drawers and assembling them together. They consist of a combination of the AM’s files and her independent research, and although Sam has her own (albeit risky) ways to access the AM’s data, every little piece helps. Mark has been quick to call Joan an information hoarder, between what she keeps in her office and what has accumulated in her apartment, and she’s sure that he rolls his eyes at how Sam has developed similar tendencies. She and Sam both understand that knowledge has no limits, however, and in that sense they are the ideal collaborators despite their occasional differences of opinion.

Forty-five minutes later, she has closed up her office and driven to Sam’s house. She is a frequent enough guest here that she enters without knocking or ringing the doorbell, and as she opens the front door she balances the box of files that she carries on one arm. Sam soon joins her in the entryway at the sound of her arrival, closing the door for her as Joan regains her full grip on the box.

“Wow, that’s a lot more file folders than I expected,” says Sam. “I thought most of your research would be on flash drives or something.”

“You’d be surprised at how physical data piles up over the years, even when so much is digitized now,” Joan replies. “Should I put these--”

“In the office, yeah. I’ll heat up some water for tea in the meantime?”

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

Joan goes into Sam’s home office and places the box among some of the other unsorted files. The room has slowly been transforming into a more professional space over the past few months, and it is now fully furnished and filled with the notes and data that Sam has gathered through her trips and illegal forays into the AM’s servers. The prospect of starting a new organization to help atypicals often feels like a daunting task, but Sam’s determination to create something that succeeds where the AM has failed certainly helps Joan believe that the idea is not so much of a pipe dream.

“Is Mark here?” she asks after she has rejoined Sam in the kitchen. “I thought he’d at least say hi if he knew I was coming over.”

“No, he’s actually out right now,” Sam replies. “Now that the weather’s starting to get a little nicer, he’s been going for walks in the city and taking his camera with him. Something about expanding his outdoor portfolio, I think. He’s been gone for over an hour by now, so if you hang around for a while I’m sure he’ll be back before you leave.”

“Actually, it’s probably for the best that he’s not here,” says Joan. “I don’t want him to jump to any conclusions about what I’m about to tell you.”

“Oh, no. Are our lives about to get even more complicated than they already are?” Sam asks as she brings two mugs of tea to where Joan now sits at the kitchen table.

“I’m not sure,” Joan admits. “It’s been a strange afternoon.”

A frown of concern crosses Sam’s lips. “What happened?”

Joan takes a sip from her mug, careful not to burn her mouth on its contents. “Well,” she begins, “you’ll never guess who came to my office today.”

“Who?” Sam asks, already apprehensive.

“Wadsworth.”

“Wadsworth?” Sam raises her eyebrows in surprise. “What did _she_ want?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I don’t know what happened, but something must have shaken her. She was actually _unsure_ of herself. You have no idea how disconcerting that is.”

“I’ve only talked to her that one time on the phone a couple of weeks ago, but yeah, I can imagine.” Sam twists the string of her discarded tea bag around her finger in an absent motion. “Do you think it was some kind of trap?”

“It crossed my mind, yes.” Joan hates how her history with Wadsworth has made her doubt what could be a genuine crisis of conscience. She is not cynical enough to believe that Wadsworth cannot change, but she also knows that Wadsworth always has an ulterior motive and a grab for power up her sleeve. “Especially because she used her doubts as an excuse to ask me to work with her again. As if she wouldn’t be questioning herself if she had me beside her.”

“Wow, she is absolutely relentless,” says Sam.

“Yes.” Joan takes another drink from her mug. “It’s one of her best and worst qualities.”

“So what exactly did she say? She outright told you that she was doubting herself?”

“More or less. She talked about how she’s not sure what to think about some of the things she’s done because she’s spent so long focusing on her goals. Which then led to discussion of her work, and…” Joan trails off, replaying pieces of the conversation in her head. She wishes she’d had the foresight to record it, because so many of its details have been lost to the distraction of her own emotions as Wadsworth had talked. “The frustrating part is that in some ways, she’s right. There _are_ atypicals who are dangerous and need to be watched closely. Everything that we’ve been through with Damien is more than enough proof of that. But she’s determined to paint every atypical with that same brush, all because she can’t stand the idea of them being more powerful than her. That’s why no matter how much she thinks that we’re alike, or that I’m the only person capable of running the AM with her, I will never be on her side. Not after what I know she’s done for the sake of progress and staying one step ahead of atypicals.”

“You mean the Tier 5 experiments with Mark,” Sam replies. Her brow furrows in anger at the mention of the atrocities that have so deeply affected someone whom they both care about.

“Among other things, yes.”

Joan leaves the statement vague, not wanting to divulge the role that Mark has played in Wadsworth’s development of the immunity serum. In the time that she has known Sam, she has come to learn that Sam possesses the same fierce desire to protect her loved ones as she does. Joan does not want her to do anything rash for Mark’s sake no matter how good her intentions are, even though she is in no place to criticize anyone on that front.

“You know,” Sam begins, speaking as if she has just remembered something, “when she called me she mentioned how it was sometimes hard for her to work with Mark because he reminded her so much of you. But she still did it anyway, because ‘the work was too important’ or something like that. I… I don’t know if that means anything, but I guess it shows that no matter how awful she is, she doesn’t _completely_ lack a conscience.”

The echo of what Wadsworth had said about Mark-- _I never would have harmed him. Not knowing who he is to you_ \--drifts through Joan’s memory. But what Wadsworth seems to be blind to despite her flickers of self-awareness is that even though she has not physically harmed Mark, she has left him with a lifetime’s worth of emotional scars. No matter how much she claims that she didn’t want to hurt Joan, her actions have caused irreparable damage regardless. It’s astonishing how someone who claims to be so intelligent has maintained such an enormous blindspot, but emotions are not always interested in complying with logic and reason.

“Conscience or not, there are some things that you can’t reconstruct after they’ve been broken,” Joan says. “Ellie should know that, and yet… Well, I suppose that’s what obsession does to you.”

“Obsession with what?” Sam asks. “Power? Authority?” The dawning of realization crosses her face as she adds in a softer and more hesitant voice, “You?”

“Yes,” Joan replies. She stares down into the depths of her mug. “She and I have both been clinging to unhealthy emotions for a long time now.”

“You really loved her, didn’t you?”

Joan’s hand twitches against her grip on the mug. She steadies her grasp and consciously relaxes the tension that has surged through her body at Sam’s observation of one of her biggest regrets.

“Sorry,” Sam adds hastily. “I know that’s insanely personal and definitely none of my business. Just forget I asked.”

“It’s okay.” Joan raises her gaze to look at her. “We’ve been friends for months, after all. I think that’s earned you more than a few personal questions.”

“I guess you’re right,” Sam concedes. “But you did, right? Love her?”

Joan remembers what she had said to Wadsworth six months ago, standing in her office and confessing the sentiment that they had never shared when they were together: _There was once a time when I thought I loved you_. She had hedged the statement with the word “thought,” emphasizing the possibly erroneous nature of her perceptions to distance herself from how badly she had misjudged Wadsworth. She can no longer hide from the truth of how she felt in those simpler days, however, no matter how much the memories have been tainted.

“Yes,” is all she says to Sam. “I did.”

Sam regards her with a familiar look of sympathy. “I don’t blame you, you know,” she says. “I mean, we all know that she’s done a lot of _really_ despicable things. But she never showed you that side of her when you were together, right? It wasn’t all… I don’t know, manipulation and mind games?”

“It’s hard to say. I’ve told you about how emotionally manipulative she was when dealing with patients, and she often treated me the same way. She knew how much I craved her praise and affection, and she wasn’t afraid to use that to make me overlook any doubts or questions I had. But I still think a part of her _did_ genuinely care about me back then. It just got overtaken by obsession and her thirst for power.”

“What do you think she’s going to do next?” Sam asks.

“I don’t know.” Joan takes another drink from her mug. “That’s the problem with Wadsworth. She’s always been unpredictable. And I don’t like not knowing what her next move will be.”

Sam’s expression of concern does not fade. “Joan,” she says hesitantly, filling the silence between them. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” The response comes out automatically despite how on-edge she has felt since her conversation with Wadsworth. “I just have a bad feeling about all of this.”

“You and me both,” Sam agrees. “But I guess we can’t really do anything but wait, right?”

“Yes,” says Joan. “Now we wait.”


	13. Chapter 13

Joan never thought that it would be Agent Green of all people who would help her expose Wadsworth’s wrongdoings, but when he shows up at her door with a pile of documents and what seems like a genuine change of heart, she does not turn away his valuable assistance. By the time she is standing with him in Wadsworth’s office the next day after having sent their damning evidence to the AM’s national headquarters in Washington D.C., she is confident that for once she may finally be one step ahead of Wadsworth.

The illusion of victory is soon shattered, however, when Wadsworth reveals that she has outmaneuvered them by already approaching headquarters with her concerns about this division of the AM, gaining their trust and being sufficiently aware of her faults so that the recently assembled case against her wouldn’t be a blindside. The prospect of Wadsworth enjoying a promotion to a position at headquarters while washing her hands of everything that she has done here infuriates Joan more than ever. She has been a fool to think that she and her allies could win this battle, because bureaucracy has its ways of rewarding those who do not deserve it.

It should be a natural ending, the closing of a book that contains part of Joan’s life that she wants to leave behind, when Wadsworth offers her a farewell and a promise not to meddle in her affairs any further. But something feels like it’s missing in those last few words shared between them, and there are things that Joan needs to say to her that are far too personal to share in front of Mark, Sam, and Agent Green. She does not want to face the regret of not getting the full closure that she should have sought years ago, even if Wadsworth is about to walk out of her life forever.

Joan has only one week until Wadsworth leaves for D.C. to brace herself to take the step forward, and it takes her three days until she feels confident enough to walk into the AM and stand outside her office as she has done on countless prior occasions. She tries to remember the first time that she walked through this door, years ago when Wadsworth was merely a distant figure for her to admire. Back then she would have never dreamed that establishing a rapport with her would put her on the tempestuous path that would so deeply consume both of them, but now she is ready to put an end to it.

“Come in,” Wadsworth says in response to her knock.

Joan opens the door. The office is now mostly vacant apart from various items of furniture, with all of her personal touches to the space packed away to be shipped to her new office. Although the usual chair in front of Wadsworth’s desk remains, Joan does not approach it and instead lingers in the doorway in her uncertainty.

“I have to say, Joan, I wasn’t expecting to see you here again,” Wadsworth begins. “I thought our parting words the other day were final enough. You might give a woman the wrong idea.”

“Yes, well.” Joan ignores the implication of the end of her statement. “There were some things that were clearly left unsaid between us, so I wanted a chance for us to talk privately. And since you said that you weren’t planning on making any house calls before you left…”

Wadsworth chuckles softly. “Don’t just stand there, then. Or do you need further invitation to come in?”

Joan steps into the office and closes the door behind her. She sits down and initially meets Wadsworth with silence as she continues to get her bearings despite being intimately familiar with this view of Wadsworth’s desk. Its surface is now almost completely empty except for the basics, which draws Joan’s attention to her even more than usual. Looking at her will never not bring her a strange mixture of emotions, but she has moved beyond the point where Wadsworth is a distraction to her.

“I suppose I never fully believed you were leaving until seeing your empty office,” she says.

Wadsworth raises her eyebrows. “Did you really think that everything about my promotion was an elaborate lie?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve fooled me,” Joan points out. “Let’s just say that by now I’ve made a habit of doubting everything that comes out of your mouth.”

“I’m sorry I’ve made you feel that way, Joan.” It’s not a full apology, but Joan will take any glimmer of self-awareness from Wadsworth that she can get. “But it sounds like I’m not the only one packing up my office. I hear you’re moving on from your private practice soon.”

“Yes.” Ordinarily she would question how Wadsworth learned of this recent development, but she has not exactly kept these plans a secret. “You said it yourself: most of my patients are no longer seeking regular therapy from me. Without getting back on the AM’s payroll or receiving an influx of new patients, it wasn’t going to be financially sustainable for much longer. I’ve already started making arrangements with the few patients that I still have so that they can continue their sessions with me if they wish. But for the most part, I’ll be focusing on my research for the project that Sam and I have been working on.”

“I’m glad to see that you’re still as devoted to your patients as ever,” says Wadsworth.

Joan gives a quiet scoff of disbelief. “I thought you hated how much I got invested in them.”

“Only when it gets you into trouble, and we both know that a lot of what you’ve done in the past year fits that description. But I’m sure you didn’t come here to argue with me.” Wadsworth clasps her hands together on the surface of her desk and presses onward. “You said there were some unspoken things between us from the other day. Let’s hear them.”

There is so much that Joan wants to say, but rather than impulsively rushing forward she makes sure to choose her words with care. “You know, I’ve been trying to find closure with you for years,” she says. “From the moment that I left the AM’s direct employment, I thought I was free from you. I didn’t have to see you anymore, so I thought I would be able to move on. But even before last summer, I could never really get rid of you. You were always there in my mind whenever I hated you for what you did to Mark or hated myself for trusting you. Because being angry for that long _isn’t_ closure, no matter how much I wanted it to be. And I’m not too proud to admit that I’ve wasted a lot of the past three years being absolutely _furious_ at you.”

Wadsworth regards her with the unblinking look of someone who is completely unfazed by her words. “This isn’t exactly news to me, Joan,” she replies. “You’ve always been rather vocal about how you feel about me since we came back into contact. Although we both know those feelings were a little more complicated than just hatred.”

Joan does not let the cavalier response deter her from pushing forward. “And yet you didn’t do anything to stop those feelings,” she says. “You just kept pulling me in, trying to convince me that nothing had changed between us. When we were together, you were always so good at making me re-examine things so I’d see them your way. But it wasn’t until you tried to convince me that we could move past everything you’d done wrong that I realized how much of a toxic pattern of behavior we have. And I’ve worked in mental health long enough to know that one of the best ways to break a toxic pattern is to take control and cut it off at the source. So that’s what I’m going to do to you. When I leave this office, I’m going to walk away from you and never look back. _That’s_ the closure I need.”

She isn’t sure what reaction to expect from Wadsworth: denial of her actions, exasperation at how Joan is being too dramatic in her assessment of her behavior, or regret at how much her actions have hurt her. As she meets Wadsworth’s eyes, however, she sees nothing but the careful calculation of her next move now that Joan has laid all of her cards on the table.

“You could have had that closure the other day,” Wadsworth points out. “Why prolong the process by dragging yourself back here instead of making a clean break when you had the perfect opportunity?”

“Because I still needed to say all of that to you,” says Joan. “I wanted to give you this last goodbye on my own terms, not just because you’re leaving due to other circumstances. If I didn’t come here today, I would have stayed unhappy with myself for how I left things. And I don’t need any more regrets when it comes to you.”

Wadsworth makes a quiet noise of understanding, which is a far more charitable response than Joan has anticipated. “For what it’s worth,” she says, “I _am_ sorry for hurting you.” At Joan’s skeptical scoff, she adds, “There are many things about my work here that I don’t regret, and I’m certainly not going to apologize for progress. But I _do_ wish that it hadn’t been your brother who led us to those breakthroughs.”

“But it would’ve been okay if it had been anyone else’s sibling?”

“It wouldn’t have been _your_ sibling. The sibling of someone I care about,” Wadsworth replies, as if her response is the most sensible reasoning in the universe.

“That’s not as reassuring as you think it is,” says Joan.

Wadsworth shrugs off her doubts with a wave of her hand. “Believe what you want. You’re the one who’s walking out of here and not looking back. I just wanted to make my feelings clear as well. I’m not the monster that you often make me out to be.”

“I know,” Joan says. “But being aware of your wrongdoings won’t make me forgive you. That bridge was burned a long time ago, no matter how much you’ve tried to rebuild it.”

“Truly a shame,” Wadsworth murmurs, almost to herself. “As difficult as you can often be, we still made a great team. Part of me always believed that when I eventually moved to a job at HQ, you would follow right behind me.”

“Well, now I suppose we’ll never know what that future looks like.”

“No,” says Wadsworth with an unmistakable note of sadness in her voice, “I suppose we won’t.”

Joan rises from her chair and walks toward the door. She inhales a breath before reaching for the door handle, preparing herself to take the final step away from Wadsworth. A lingering inkling of curiosity holds her back, however, and so she turns to face Wadsworth’s desk in defiance of her plan to leave without looking back.

“Can I ask you one last thing?” she asks.

“Go ahead,” Wadsworth replies with a nod.

“That day when you came to my office and admitted that you’ve been having second thoughts about some of your actions. What caused you to doubt yourself like that?”

A frown crosses Wadsworth’s expression as she carefully considering her response. Joan sees a hint of the vulnerability that she had shown to her in her office a few weeks ago, the crack in her confident and arrogant exterior, and it is no less disconcerting now than it was then.

“Finding out that my own family is afraid of me,” Wadsworth replies finally. “You’ve always valued family above everything else, so I’m sure you understand how much something like that hurts. How much it shakes your foundation when your sister shuts you out and your nephew isn’t sure whether he can look at you the same way now that he knows what you’ve done.” Her frown deepens at the mention of the rift between her and her sister that has only recently begun to mend. “It made me realize that I was going to have to make some changes, and as foolish as it sounds, you were the only person I could go to with those concerns.”

“And yet you managed to come out on top anyway,” says Joan. “With no actual help from me, I’m sure.”

Wadsworth gives a quiet laugh. “Quite the contrary. Your stubborn refusal to join me was frustrating, certainly. But between that and Green’s obvious desire to oust me as Director, I finally had the push that I needed to make a move with HQ. So you can take at least partial credit for finally being rid of me.”

“I’m honored,” Joan replies, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Silence falls between them before Wadsworth stands up and walks around her desk to approach Joan at the door. She extends a hand to her in an offer of both farewell and truce, which Joan accepts. Her touch no longer brings the excited burst of electricity or the consuming burn of rage through Joan’s veins, a sign that she is truly ready to move on from those days of passion and fury.

“So this really is goodbye, then,” says Wadsworth. “You truly are an extraordinary woman, Joan, and it was a pleasure to know you. I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone else quite like you.”

“And if I ever meet another woman like you, it will be far too soon.”

A wry smile crosses Wadsworth’s lips. “Fair enough. Take care, Joan.”

“You too, Wadsworth.”

Joan relinquishes the grip of their handshake, leaving Wadsworth with a less personal form of address and the ghost of her touch. She turns away from her and opens the door, resisting the urge to look back at her as she passes through the doorway into the hall. Instead she faces straight ahead and walks forward, her steps carrying her out of the building with the lightness of freedom.

She waits until she has arrived at her car in the parking lot to take her phone out of her purse. She settles herself in the driver’s seat as she listens to the rings on the other end of the phone call. Her key remains unturned in the ignition until she can drive without the distraction of needing to tell someone about what she has successfully done.

“Hey, Joanie,” comes the sound of Mark’s voice through the phone’s speaker after he has answered. “What’s up? Are you still at work?”

“No, I… I’m in the AM parking lot, actually. I decided to finally get closure with Wadsworth. More than we all got the other day,” she adds before Mark has the chance to remind her of that encounter. “I told her that I’ve wasted too much of my life thinking about everything that she did to me, and I’m going to take this opportunity to shut the door on her and cut her out of my life forever.”

“Damn.” Mark sounds genuinely impressed at her ruthless course of action. “How do you feel?”

The simplicity of the question and the complexity of its answer give her pause. “I’m not sure,” she replies. “Relieved, I guess. Maybe even optimistic. I really do think she’s going to honor my wishes to never see her again.”

“Good. I know _I’ve_ definitely had enough of that woman to last me a lifetime. I mean, I’d rather have her locked up in prison than enjoying a shiny new job in D.C., but I’ll take what I can get if it means she’ll finally leave us alone.”

“Unfortunately we don’t live in a world where everyone gets the comeuppance they deserve,” says Joan. “I suppose that’s one of life’s harsh realities, isn’t it?”

Mark makes a quiet sound of both understanding and annoyance. “I hope you told her to go fuck herself before you left.”

“No, although I probably should have. But I’m sure the look on her face as I walked away was more than worth it.”

“What, you didn’t see it?” Mark asks.

“I told her I was going to walk away without looking back. It would have ruined the symbolic effect.”

Mark laughs. “And here I was thinking that _I_ was the dramatic one in the family.” After a moment’s hesitation, he then continues with, “You know, I’m proud of you, Joanie.”

“Yeah?” It’s far from the first time that he has praised or been in awe of her actions, but after all of the mistakes that she has made in their relationship, she cannot hear the sentiment from him enough: the reassurance that to him she will always be his big sister who is worthy of his admiration.

“I know how hard it is to face someone who hurt you and tell them that you’re not going to let them control you anymore,” he says. “I’ll probably never understand everything about what happened between you and Wadsworth or what you saw in her, but I’m glad that you’re strong enough to start moving forward. You deserve a life that’s free from her shadow.”

“Thanks.” Joan toys with one of the dangling keychains on her keys in the ignition. “It _is_ a wonderful feeling, knowing that I don’t have to concern myself with her ever again.”

“So, what are you going to do now?” Mark asks.

The possibilities are wider than Joan has ever imagined with the closing of one chapter and the opening of another. “I’m not sure yet,” she admits. “But I’ll probably be home within the hour. Maybe we can cook some dinner together and have a movie night?”

She proposes the offer hesitantly, still cautious when it comes to rebuilding the months and years that have been lost between them. But now more than ever she understands the importance of forging a new path: not focusing on regaining something long gone but instead building something new on a burned-out foundation while accepting what she has lost along the way.

“Sounds perfect,” says Mark, and Joan can hear the smile in his voice. “See you soon.”

The call ends. Joan takes a deep breath before starting her car, and then she drives onward into the open world of possibility.


End file.
